The all-seeing eye

The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre looks more like a science museum these days with its amazing photos of the Omega Nebula 5,000 light-years distant from Earth, and the leaves of herbs scrutinised through a microscope.

They are the work of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, and the exhibition is called – poetically if not scientifically – “Clairvoyance”. A large-format book of the photos bearing the same title is on sale.

The enlarged microscopic pictures on view have small holes in the middle, inside which you can see the actual subject matter. Enormous close-ups of basil and lavender, chilli, silk thread and abalone shells have samples of the real thing in glass bottles ensconced within.

There are also several remarkable aerial photos of Bangkok captured with a drone camera. 

In what’s become a tradition, the Princess has mounted photo exhibitions each year since 2007. We look forward to snapshots from her official travels at home and abroad and her portraits of the royal family. This year’s exhibition, though – with 158 images presented in informative installations – demonstrates her abiding interest in science and technology. 

“This year there are photos taken through a telescope,” the Princess writes in the preface of the accompanying book, “of celestial bodies such as star clusters and nebulae so far away they cannot be seen by the naked eye. Space has always fascinated mankind. Today’s technologies enable us to delve further into space than ever before.”

The Princess says she’s “always been a stargazer” though she never trained in astronomy. 

“But I have been fortunate to have used advanced telescopes recently available to Thailand. Seeing the vast unknown space impresses upon me how insignificant we humans are. Our knowledge, what we know now, is so minuscule compared to what we do not know in the infinity of space.”

She looked aloft and she looked deep within. While conducting research on herbal products, the Princess was able to use the Scanning Electron Microscope at the National Nanotechnology Centre to view the plants’ molecular structure. 

And what she saw through the lens she recognised as a form of art. Many of the pictures are decidedly abstract.

“I could see how a leaf can secrete its aroma oil from tiny pouches (nanoencapsulation),” she writes. “Certain butterflies have no pigment in their wings, and yet we see colours because of the reflection of light. There is also a photo from a drone that allows us to see from high altitude. Photos produced by this drone are used in the development of terrain.”

Drones, microscopes and telescopes “give us magical eyes to see unbelievable visions”, the Princess said at the show’s opening last Wednesday. “Hence the name of this year’s photo book, ‘Clairvoyance’. It’s taken from ‘Inao’, the traditional Thai epic, where Prince Joraka proclaims, during his dagger dance for the gods, ‘My two hands held high in reverence for all gods big and small, for all those with clairvoyance, do not side with the villain!’”

Princess Sirindhorn’s interest in drone cameras goes beyond the recent fad that’s seen them widely used by newspaper photographers to capture crowd scenes. She’s keen to study Bangkok from a different perspective. She sent a drone aloft above Sra Pathum Palace, where she lives. It’s “safer” than taking pictures from an Air Force plane, as she’s done in the past, she said, and saves energy in the form of fuel.

Her aerial shots are installed in glass boxes on the floor, and on the wall is a photo of her guiding the drone with a remote control. “This isn’t a selfie,” she quipped. 

Using nothing other than the mundane technology of a regular camera, the Princess has taken lovely photos of Venice in Italy and Nagaland in India, in Timor-Leste and Malta, and at the Xuankong Buddhist Temple in Shanxi, China, known as the Hanging Monastery. A colourful fresh market in Luang Prabang is also depicted.

She shares compelling portraits of an unnamed southern girl and of the late National Artist Thawan Duchanee, taken last December before he died late this year, and there are more adorable sightings of her own cat and street cats. 

All of the images are presented with meticulous notes, listing the location, date, gear and techniques. The Princess’ insistence on recording such details reflects her education – in arts at Chulalongkorn and archaeology at Silpakorn universities. There are many amusing captions, too, which ably reflect her well-known sense of humour.