Biographie
German born photographer Marcus Koppen (1973) graduated with a BA (Hons) in Photography at the Southampton Institute of Art and Design (UK) in 2001.
In 2003 he relocated to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and started out as a freelance photographer for the Dutch Print Media. Specializing in Portraiture and Travel Photography which took him from the Arctic Circle around the Globe to the Sahara Desert. Quickly his main focus became the Megacities and the cluster of Urban planing within.
During an short assignment to Thailand in late 2008 he came across the lives of the ladyboy which stuck in his head and sparked the idea to create a portrait study totally dedicate to the Thai Lady boy gender. Ever since he has returned multiply times for a longer periods to portray the third gender in all different parts of the country.
Présentation
positive due to Thailand’s high profile sex industry; but I was intrigued in who these people really are behind the façade.
Their bodies tell of their physical and emotional struggle to change to a women, to become what they have always dreamt of: though born as boys, most of them desire to look like glamorous international supermodels or famous movie stars. These portraits try to capture their intense personal struggle in making their transformation. Behind the ladyboys’ dreams are fundamental human issues that touch upon identity, body, beauty, sexuality, race and the longing to be accepted.
3 years ago in Thailand I was so overwhelmed by the amount of ladyboys in everyday live, the normality and accepts the 3rd gender receives in the Thai culture and due to religious believes and open minded men and women the ladyboys are widely excepted without any limitations to society, sometimes shocking and sometimes educational, in total opposite to the often uptight and prude culture we are taught in the western world, were transgender is almost a taboo and seen as skanky and unacceptable to the society..
This experience got me so curious that I had to return to Thailand on two self finances trips to start my project and shoot my 1st series of portraits. During these trips I have managed to dive into the world of the ladyboys and found an understanding of the difficulties each person struggles with, in order to become a women. In believe and search for status and acceptance that the real woman receives in their daily lives I found out that they take the choice and go through almost all extremes of mental and physical pain in order to change from boy/men in to a women’s body and sometimes are left in a unrecognizable shell.
I believe collecting small personal details and notes (such as dreams, pride, family, femininity, loneliness, regrets and so on) of each ladyboy to compliment each photo. Using the same framing and the same artificial light source to keep a continuous visual flow within the ever changing setting of the locations will give the viewer a pleasure of thoughts about their own lives and hopefully education to a better understanding and to throw a little light on to peoples individual needs and dreams to clarify confusions and take prejudices about gender issues in the western world.