Issiree Shereen Sarntisart

It was a hot Tuesday afternoon when I arrived at FAZAL Unlimited on a Grabbike, bundled with all my camera gear. Fazal is a 1930s building near the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. It was once home to one of Bangkok’s first department stores, E.M. Katib, which sold luxury products from Europe to the Royal Palace.

The roller shutter rattled open, and Shereen came to show me around. Layers of paint from past decades are left exposed, allowing the building’s long life to show through. Shereen, co-founder and director, calls it a deliberate decision to let the space remain honest and keep its historical personality.

Up on the rooftop, Shereen opened up about her background in fashion design and art direction, work she still takes on. As a child, she was always interested in art, to the point that she would rather spend hours in museums than visit famous landmarks.

Her first steps into gallery life came when she and Pierre Béchon launched TARS Unlimited on Songwat Road, a continuation of Pierre’s original gallery. To spare the space from “social media syndrome”, visits are made by appointment only, avoiding the crowds of tourists there mainly for selfie opportunities that TARS Unlimited had encountered.

On our way out, we both witnessed an intriguing phenomenon. The ground floor pulled its own light show, mixing traffic signals and car headlights slipping through the shutter slats and scattering blazing colourful light across the empty hall. I couldn’t have choreographed it if I had tried, so I grabbed my final shots right there, asking Shereen to stand in this abstract environment.

“Fazal” means grace in Farsi: the name felt just right.