Far From Home — Krerkburin Kerngburi

Far From Home (2018-2019), UK

I was born in a small province – Lampang - in the north of Thailand, and grew up in the city of Chiang Mai. Most Thai people perceive the UK as a highly-civilised country with wealthy, sophisticated and noble people. I could never imagine myself being in the UK, let alone living and studying there; It was an impossible dream for a man like me. Aside from football, rock & roll bands, and landmarks such as Big Ben or the London Eye, I barely knew anything about this country before arriving.

Far From Home is a body of photographic work that I’ve made in the UK between 2018-19 – an exploration of a culture that is very different from my home, as well as my own “culture shock”. I am interested in observing human behaviour in a public setting with fresh eyes, and encountering a culture that is very different from the one described by a tourist guidebook.

Using a street photography approach, Far From Home represents a kind of personal diary that records all sorts of things that I have encountered in my everyday life in the UK, and also reflects my perspective as a Thai photographer who is living in a completely foreign environment, rich with cultural diversity. This has inspired me tremendously to connect these public encounters with my personal experience, and incorporates a subtle (dark) humour, which I regard as a fundamental part of storytelling as well as my own sensibility. Humour is simple and straightforward; at the same time, it can subtly reveal meaningful undertones, encourage scepticism, and provoke new questions about the culture itself, and my own cultural differences.

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- SEEN Magazine (2020)
- Eyeshot Magazine (2019)

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Krerkburin Kerngburi

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