When was the last time we attentively looked at the home we grew up with?

We might go back there for a visit, or even currently reading this article in that home. In a place full of memories called home, every little detail, the sound of steps going upstairs, the shelves in the living room, or the color of bathroom tiles, all contain meaning on its own, which in many times might provoke some feelings that are incomprehensible within ourselves.

This also happened to Nong – Puvadol Saengvichien, who managed these feelings with photography. Returning to the home in his childhood days, he would grab a camera to release the shutter every time he felt something. “I use photography as a conversation with myself. Sometimes I see something and I have a feeling about it that I couldn’t understand. I would freeze the scene as an image. By looking at it I would realize what it was.” Nong explained. He intended to take a careful look at his home to make an understanding of himself.

Those images turned into a photo series called ‘Home’. If we look at it profoundly, we would see stories contained in each photo. We would see mourning, see an attempt to seek and search for the answer, the answer that was right in front of him, but took almost a period of one year to be accepted.

Let’s find out that answer with Nong.

This is the conversation on relationships, changes and letting go.

A conversation of ‘home’ as a ‘living creature’.

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The first time I met Nong was three years ago. He showed me the photos on his smartphone. It was when he started to photograph all the broken stuff left on the street. He said that he felt something was holding him back to take photos of them, but he didn’t know what. He then tried to find the reason for it. After that, regardless of when we met, I would ask Nong of the places where broken stuff is being put, and if he found out his own reason yet. The first question always brought me funny answers, while the second one remained unanswered for almost another year.

From abandoned objects on the street which he captured by instinct, gradually being developed into photo collections which tell stories about those objects. From ‘Broken Dreams’ in which Nong photographed a zoo that seems almost haunted, ‘Believe’ which is composed of photos of a symbol of superstitions like statues or images in desolated corners, or ‘Man Made Animals’ where all artificial creatures captured by Nong look pitiful. Though some of his projects were created from photography workshops he attended consecutively for five years after resigning from his company for a break, which later turned into a retirement for full-time photography career, it is evident that all of Nong’s works are generated mainly from his curiosity and interests.

In the previous year, I got to see the next steps of Nong’s project, which is the series ‘Wandering’, a survey for stuff and places which is not to investigate external context, but the conflict deep inside his mind, and his next project ‘Home’ which does not only investigate himself, but also his relationship with the family through a place called home.

“Sometimes when I come home I feel so uncomfortable. Normally if I feel so, I would capture those feelings in photos, therefore I tried it with my home. At the beginning I wasn’t thinking much. On that day whether I carried a film camera or a digital camera I would go with it. Throughout the year I had taken so many different kinds of photos, and kept on going without specific intention. Sometimes there were moments that I could see something. Let’s say, I saw a cabinet where I stored my toys when I was young. Now all of them are gone and the dishes were kept inside instead. Still, the stain of a sticker that the younger me had put was still there. I was stunned looking at it, and then tried to take a photo of it.

I asked Nong what he saw in his pictures at that moment. “Old house, collapsed house, my barely remained self, my old mom, my ill mom, this is all I could see, like a talk with myself but it’s not clear.”

Nong’s talk to self became clear after a workshop with Valentina Abenavoli, the owner of a photo book and art book publisher called AkinaBooks, which was held by Spark. The workshop required 25 photos for the application. Nong, who did not yet understand the process of taking photos of his home, chose to submit this project for application in order to develop it along with the workshop.

In Valentina Abenavoli’s workshop, she had her students learn about their works through the mirrors of others. After having them print out 100-150 of their photos and lay them on a table, she let all the workshop participants including herself pick up one of the classmates’ photos which affected them emotionally, and tell the thoughts they have with the photos. That was when Nong found out that what he felt with his photos was the same as what his classmates saw and felt. Words from audiences who look at the work from an outsider perspective allowed Nong to see himself clearer. Photos of Nong’s home could connect with memories that others had with their homes. They told their memories to Nong and let him, the owner of the work, connect them with his deep feelings.

“My working process is, normally when I finish taking photos and viewing them, I would note down what I saw, how I felt. After I came back from the workshop I wrote it all down at once, because it was so clear.” Nong recalled “What they said to me made me realize what the core of it is.”

I asked him, what is the core of it?

Nong looked into my eyes and said “The core of it is that I’m preparing my heart for changes.”

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Nong’s mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

She will turn 90 this year. Going back home every week, getting to sit with her month by month, Nong could see how much she has changed. In the house where the picture of his late father is hung on the wall with the picture of his mother when she was competing in the Miss Thailand beauty pageant, in the house with a leaning shelf and a shabby cabinet, the person who lives inside is also gradually losing memories and vitality.

Nong told me that once he understood what all the photos he had taken were about, he cried devastedly. “As I froze it as a photo and looked at it, I was reminded that all of this is gone. It’s all gone. I had to admit it. I wouldn’t try to change it anymore. I realized that everything changes in the way it does, be it objects, health or relationships” Nong said, on the day he doesn’t cry anymore. “If I keep holding onto it, keep that uncomfortable feeling without trying to comprehend it, I would stay trapped in such distress.”

Looking back at the photos after realizing their meaning, everything became clear: the picture of his mom looking at the calendar, a pillow with a floral pattern cross stitch embroidery and a big hole, or a photo with faded colors in a frame covered with dust. Nong combined the photos he took with the old photos from his family photo album, fulfilling the stories for us to see the past that is impossible to be redeemed.

When was the last time we attentively looked at the home we grew up with? How did we feel? Is our heart actually prepared?

These might be questions stuck in mind after seeing the collection ‘Home’ by Nong, at least for me.

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I asked Nong if he ever showed his photos to his family.

“I always show them to my mother. She would just smile and five minutes later she would forget. As for my siblings I’ve never properly shown or explained my pictures to them. But my elder sister noticed that I took photos of broken stuff in our house and fixed them all. Now they are in nice condition again.” Nong laughed “She does understand that it’s a matter of uneasiness, but Thai families won’t be sitting down and openly having a talk together. She got what the point is and chose to repair them herself.”

The project ‘Home’ is finished as there is no more uneasiness in mind that needs to be recorded with photographs and analyzed. It finished with Nong’s acceptance in the transitions of life. Meanwhile, as the home itself becomes more neat and pleasant, people who live inside also become happier with it. “Even if I keep going, my energy is not the same as it used to be anymore, as well as the place. So I’ve got to move on now.” said Nong.

In one way, ‘Home’ might not be just the self-contemplation of Nong, but a photo taking process that brought changes to the home and relationships, without Nong and the family members saying anything to one another.

Also in the other way, ‘Home’ is a record of what has passed. Objects may grow old. People may age. But once the time is given, in the next five or ten years as we grow older than now, the feelings that Nong or even us have while looking back at ‘Home’ can be altered. One day, stories and time might be able to turn the unpleasantness in ‘Home’ into a precious, memorable thing.

Same goes with memories.