Prince of Kamphaengphet's Peep Show An exhibition of 3D glass plate photography by General His Royal Highness Prince Purachatra Jayakara, Prince of Kambaengbejra

1 November 2025 - 28 February 2026

[Opening Party Sat 22 Nov 2025, 6 pm - 11 pm]

For the very first time, photographs from 3D glass negatives taken by His Royal Highness Prince Purachatra Jayakara, Prince of Kambaengbejra, will finally reveal themselves to the world as they were meant to be seen. Prince Purachatra took these personal photographs more than a hundred years ago (between 1908 - 1921). Among other things they show Siamese people of varied tribes and ethnicities from North to South. The first head of State Railway, he encountered them as a pioneering train engineer building railways across the virgin landscape. He met the tribes of Indochina (Vietnam and Cambodia), then under French colonial rule; he experienced some cities in China under the British; with an enviable freedom now unimaginable, he travelled through the Arabian lands. These negatives preserved in the National Archive may be antiques, but the photographs appear vibrant and fresh. We are intrigued by their spell-binding power; we ask ourselves why we cannot look away.

Photo artist/curator Manit Sriwanichpoom: The photographer employed the candid approach to record the various events he encountered on his official trips and personal adventures in foreign lands. This intimate immediacy makes these 3D photographs really stand out from much of the National Archive collection. The composition and the timing of when to press the shutter are as precise as a professional. These images are more than visual history. In themselves they are works of art.

Feminist writer Ing K: The person who witnessed and recorded these images for us looked at the world with a very human eye, the gaze of empathy, and not just for people: his caged monkey is heartbreaking. He wasn't just some Western graduate prince who looked upon "the indigenous tribes" as less than human, as the white man does. This is likely because, in the white man's eye, he himself also came from a country of "naked savages", from a Siam where women once upon a time and not so long ago could walk around bare-breasted with dignity and freedom. Like that awesome woman in Sudan, they did not see themselves as evil temptress or forbidden native fruit/sex object.

General His Royal Highness Prince Purachatra Jayakara, Prince of Kambaengbejra, was King Chulalongkorn's 35thson, born to Chao Chom Manda Wad. He graduated in mechanical and military engineering from England's Trinity College, Cambridge. During Rama V's reign in 1906 he was a Division Commander and Inspector General of Army Engineers. Under Rama VI in 1917 he was chief of the Royal Railway Department. Under Rama VII in 1926 he was minister of commerce and transport. In 1931 he became Privy Minister. He died in King Ananda's reign, in 1936, in exile in Singapore, at the age of 55. The Chatrajaya royal lineage is descended from him.

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