John Kaldor, founder of Sydney-based nonprofit organization Kaldor Public Art Projects (KPAP), announced last week in Sydney that young Indigenous Australian artist Jonathan Jones had won the open competition to create a site-specific work celebrating KPAP’s 45th anniversary, slated to take place in 2016.

“Who is Lau Fu Zi?” If you pose this question to a Chinese person, his or her response would perhaps be, “Are you kidding?” followed by an awkward and incredulous silence. The truth is that even a seven-year-old child would be able to identify this figure—the protagonist of an enduring Chinese comic series. 

Motorcycling gangs—often unapproachable and intimidating to an outsider—carry with them an air of mystery. Emerging photographer Nattapon “Gaow” Nukulkam, who wanted to delve into this closed world to explore the reality of life in a gang, came across Madness MC, a group based in the hills outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Over the course of six months, Gaow integrated himself within this community by following them closely, and was invited to participate in intimate celebrations reserved for the gang’s inner circle. What emerged was a photojournalistic series for his undergraduate thesis that gives a unique insight into an ostensibly impenetrable club. Made up of around 20 members, Madness practices motorcycle gang traditions such as initiation rituals and community values. But Gaow’s project breaks through the typical stereotypes and preconceptions that surround motorcycle gangs. At 22 years old, the young photographer was an unlikely candidate to end up in the midst of such a group, yet he brought sensitivity and perception to the photographs that could only have come from his position as an onlooker. He enables the audience to see past the solid, outer layers of the gang—beneath the tattoos and initiation ceremonies—and into the humanizing aspects that show the members as unique individuals. Gaow documents how they connect and interact with each other by playing with different perspectives. In May, the artist showed ArtAsiaPacific around his debut solo exhibition at Documentary Arts Asia in Chiang Mai, which featured his motorcycle gang series, and talked about his experience of making this striking collection of images.