Ice Harvest chapter I & II is an ongoing documentary project about, T. Thanawan Ice Group, the ice factory that my parents own in Pathumthani, Thailand. This documentary examines the behaviors around bribe culture, the relationships between my parents, the factory workers, and myself, as well as the bribe culture in Thailand.

Chapter I contains 10 collaborative portraits between me and the workers and a narrated video of the workers.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest ended on November 13, 2010. In 2015, her party won an election, and that same year she demanded better benefits for Burmese workers in Thailand. It was a trick to upset the Thai government and to get the laborers back to Myanmar. In reaction to that, the Thai government came up with a more strict process for obtaining work visas. The business owner must submit 2 forms of photo identification, the visa application, a job offer letter, and a verified birth certificate. Depending on who is reviewing the application, the process could be difficult or easy. After everything is submitted, in order to verify the employer and employee relationship, the business owners have to attend an interview. Then, the workers have to go back to their countries and wait for their visas to be approved to be able to come back to Thailand. As a result of this new process, factory workers have to pay more money to apply for visas, my parents were short on workers for at least 6 months, and the profits decreased tremendously.

Since my parents own the ice factory, I’ve been asked if I understand my privilege over the workers. At the end of 2017, I went back home to photograph the workers and in turn, I handed them my camera and I let them photograph me in the way they wanted to. In the end, I’m still the daughter of the owners and I will always have power over them, but my attempt at bridging that gap between us reduced because as they trusted me to take their portrait, I trusted them to hold the one thing I rarely let anyone touch, my camera. This led me to one more thing I will be observing in a future project the push and pull between my parents and the workers, who depend on who?

Headshots

Despite taking headshots and filling out their work visas for the employees, I don’t remember anything about them. In the video, I was trying to recall who they were. This is the first time since I started working on Ice Harvest that I fully present myself as the daughter of the ice factory owner.

Chapter II contains four portraits of my mom in her office, five images of machines and spaces in the ice factory, and one video from security cameras from 2014.

Since December 2013, Thailand has been under military control because there were protests happening at that time and the government could no longer maintain control of the people. Therefore, the military took control.

As a result of the protest in 2013, many bunkers spread across the country, and one of them was located near my mom’s ice shop in Pathumthani. Talad Thai is a produces wholesale company, located in Pathumthani as well. Every year they arranged an auction to have 2 ice sellers set up their shops and sell ice in the company’s area. Starting in 2013 they only wanted one, my parents didn’t win an auction in 2014. My mom renovated her commercial buildings in the area into two different ice shops and continue her business. She did this because another ice shop owner, Lek, did the same thing when my parents won the auction in 2013.

Lek has threatened to kill my parents in many ways including sending people to follow my dad, showing up at my mom’s ice shop with armed soldiers, asking an imposer of a monarchy to find my parents, and sending two men on foot to look for me after I put these videos online.