Sudaporn Teja

In most of my shoots, I usually know the people I photograph. With Som and Way , the whole picture only came together once I visited them. It started with a few cat cuddles, a long coffee conversation, and a decision to begin the shoot at Lek’s hair salon, a place Som had previously introduced into her project LANNA ANNAL ANNEX with Gallery Ver in 2023. Som, a contemporary artist from Chiang Mai, found the salon by accident. Run by Lek, also from the North, it doubles as a small Lanna restaurant next door.

Over bowls of khao soi, Som told me how this place became important to her. Living in Bangkok, she felt the need to reconnect with her roots, and through Lek’s story she recognised parts of her own. Hair, cut or extended, became a quiet metaphor for ancestry and belonging, something she continues to explore in her work. Som comes from a long lineage of Lanna artists and craftsmen. Her late grandfather was a traditional healer who also practised white magic. She showed me his notebooks filled with handwritten yantras, material she plans to explore further in future projects.

Early in her career, Som was known as an abstract painter, but in 2017 she shifted to contemporary art, feeling abstraction had become too inward-looking. While her abstract work reflected her struggle with depression, moving toward research-based practice opened her work to dialogue, collaboration, and deeper engagement with culture and society. Som met her partner, Way, 12 years ago at an art event in Chiang Mai. Their bond was immediate, despite their contrasting personalities.

Way, an extroverted qualitative market researcher, often helps Som organise her research and writing, and his curiosity for art has grown alongside her practice. In her studio, every canvas faced the wall. Som told me she prefers working without the invasive presence of past work. As the light faded, I photographed her at her desk and ended the shoot with Peanut, one of her three cats, who joined the family during COVID. At the time of the shoot, her next exhibition, a photography and archival project expanding on two previous shows about Lanna history, was scheduled to open on 12 January 2026 at Hub of Photography as part of HOP Showcase.