30/07/2026
Twenty years ago, Tintin Cooper invited me to a rooftop party in Ari. We had first connected through Myspace, and it was the first time we met in person. During the party, she introduced me to many of the people who would become my friends during my early years in Thailand.
We gradually lost touch after she returned to the UK to continue her studies and later settled in Berlin. When she came back to Bangkok last year for a residency and an exhibition at SAC Gallery, I took the chance to photograph her.
We first worked near the gallery, carrying pieces from her exhibition, Banana Ghost, into the street. An angry banana tree and a character combining Pikachu with Pepe the Frog felt more at home there than inside the white cube. That mix of Thai folklore, internet culture, absurdity, and humour runs through Tintin’s work. It may look cute or silly at first, but this is also how she approaches more complicated ideas without making the work feel heavy.
Still, we wanted something more personal, so we met again in Ari, where our story had begun. We passed the house she had shared with other artists when we first met. It was still there, though everyone who had once lived there had moved on. After a quick pad thai, we climbed to the rooftop of the small apartment she was renting. Her laundry moved above the low Ari skyline while the smog softened the sunset. After a few shots, we both sat there, our conversation suddenly turned to loss. Both of us had been shaped by the death of our mutual partners.
Tintin had stopped making art for nearly four years, turning instead to woodworking and learning chair construction with hand tools. When she recently returned to art, she promised herself she would do it entirely on her own terms, without bending her practice to fit curatorial themes. She wanted to make work that felt honest to her.
Twenty years had passed since that first party. Ari had changed, and so had we, but from one rooftop to another, something of the Tintin I had first met was still there.
