Chardchakaj Waikawee’s electric portrait of youth in Bangkok

For Chardchakaj Waikawee, youth has very little to do with age. Years themselves are arbitrary. “Youth is a kind of energy that lives inside people. It’s curiosity. It’s the courage to make mistakes. It’s the willingness to begin again, even after life has disappointed you,” the Bangkok-based photographer explains. His latest exhibition, Youth, takes its name from the Thai phrase wai run – a spirit of vitality that persists irrespective of age.

Most of the people he photographs are part of what he terms the “foundations” of the city’s financial ecosystem – the ones who “carry the weight”. He tells Dazed, “They are the motorcycle taxi drivers, street vendors, construction workers, cleaners, teenagers trying to survive, people working jobs that keep the city moving but are rarely acknowledged. They are essential to Bangkok, yet they’re often the people who receive the least. Many earn very little despite working incredibly hard. Some grow up without proper education. Some don’t know who their parents are. Some don’t even know their own birthday. These aren’t exceptional stories; they exist quietly around us every day.”

Taking portraits of people subsisting on the city’s margins, Waikawee’s encounters with this elusive spirit of youthfulness are unpredictable and surprising. “I’ve met 20-year-olds whose eyes already looked exhausted, as if hope had quietly disappeared. And I’ve met people in their 70s whose eyes were still full of light – they still carried hope; they still had this unstoppable drive, as if there was something out there worth discovering. Many of the people in my photographs are like that. Some are approaching the end of their lives, but they still enjoy getting dressed, laughing, meeting people, and living with curiosity.”

Living with curiosity is one of the important tenets of Waikawee’s philosophy of youthfulness. It’s also one of the principal qualities that distinguishes his work as a photographer. He is fascinated by people, and by Bangkok itself. While he doesn’t “chase dramatic moments” or go hunting for “the perfect shot”, he does immerse himself in the life of the city. His street photographs don’t have the detached, clandestine quality of Walker Evans, who used a concealed camera to take pictures of subway riders, or Jeff Mermelstein, known for his stealthy close-ups of strangers’ text messages as they use their phones in public. Waikawee’s portraits suggest something reciprocal between the photographer and the people he photographs. One portrait in particular – of a boy sipping Coca-Cola from a bag – conveys the strong sense of an exchange. He is staring straight at us, the viewer, via Waikawee’s lens, with a rebellious, engaged gaze. “There was something in his eyes that I still can’t explain,” the photographer recalls “Hope. Curiosity. A quiet determination.”

“There’s an old Thai saying, ‘If you want to find a tiger cub, you have to enter the tiger’s cave.’ I’ve always believed photography begins the same way. If you want to understand someone’s life, you have to be willing to step into their world,” the photographer tells us. “My mother once told me something I’ll never forget. She said my photographs look as if they were taken by someone the people already knew. I think that’s one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received.”

His portraits are brimming with life – the back of a truck teaming with workers, posed in a perfect tableau amid the rear lights of mopeds on the road at night; a young couple with their new baby, brimming with love and pride. Waikawee has a roving eye for idiosyncrasy, humour, irony and style. By his own admission, Bangkok “has never tried to become a perfect city”, but it’s the perfect landscape for his work. He cherishes what others might regard as its imperfections. “For me, Bangkok isn’t just a city. It’s a living organism,” he explains. “What fascinates me most are its contradictions. In Bangkok, you might see a homeless person sleeping outside the Grand Palace. A sex worker standing just outside a Buddhist temple. A monk walking past a beer bar. A billionaire collecting sacred Buddhist amulets while someone with almost nothing donates their last savings to a temple.”

Waikawee’s portraits recognise his subjects’ resilience, their pride and their incredible personal style, such as one particularly memorable picture of a punk with an impressive pink mohawk so high he has to drive with the sunroof open. “My photography doesn’t give people dignity. It simply recognises something that has always been there,” he says. “I photograph people who refuse to give up. People who continue living, no matter how difficult life becomes. Many of them have every reason to complain, but they don’t. They don’t ask for sympathy. They don’t expect the world to become fair. They’re simply grateful that today they’re still alive. They’re still breathing. They survived another day. To me, that’s a kind of courage we rarely celebrate. That’s the courage I want to remember.”

Youth is running at Graces Mews gallery, London, until 19 September 2026.