In 1997, Thai photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom initiated his photographic project, Pink Man, just before Thailand's Tom Yum Kung economic crisis. Positioned at a critical juncture in Thai history, the project captures the unsettling surge of consumer culture that swept through the country following decades of industrialization and relaxed trade regulations. Manit's observations of unchecked consumerism became central to his exploration, laying bare societal shifts and their underlying complexities.
Pink Man centers on a recurring character: a chubby Asian man in a shocking pink satin suit, persistently accompanied by an empty shopping cart. This character symbolizes extreme consumerism, embodying society's unreflective pursuit of material wealth. Pink Man’s presence in hypermarkets, tourist attractions, and historical photographs starkly juxtaposes mundane consumer activities against the backdrop of the political and cultural tensions.
First introduced in 1997 in the sub-series Pink Man Begins, the character evolved through a range of thematic adaptations, each targeting socio-cultural critiques. In Pink Man on Tour, Pink Man appears in tourist destinations across Thailand, scrutinizing the state's commodification of national identity and heritage. Horror in Pink places the character within archival images of government crackdowns, confronting collective amnesia and the erasure of political trauma. In Pink Man in Paradise, created in response to the 2002 terrorist bombing in Bali, the figure becomes a symbol of the tourist consumerism and the negative impact of globalisation. The series extended internationally with Pink Man on European Tour, where the character is staged in iconic European locales to reflect global consumer uniformity, while Beijing Pink substitutes the character with his trolley alone, turning it into a ghostly relic of consumer desire against China’s fast-paced urban evolution. The project's socio-political scope further expands in sub-series such as Pink Man Opera, which draws on political proverbs to satirize contemporary conflicts, and Pink, White & Blue, a critique of rising nationalism and consumer indoctrination in Thai education and identity. Later sub-series, such as The Last Man and the End of His Story and Heavenly Pink, suggest a symbolic conclusion to Pink Man's journey, reflecting on violent social environments and the dismantling of consumer identities.
Visually, the sub-series share an evolving yet unified aesthetic marked by saturated hues reminiscent of advertising, satirical staging, and the disruptive presence of Pink Man’s vivid pink costume and cart. Whether set against bustling markets, serene landscapes, or monochrome historical backdrops, the shocking pink hue functions as both a visual irritant and conceptual anchor, drawing attention to consumerism’s incongruity. While early images lean toward spontaneous street documentation, later works adopt carefully orchestrated compositions, with the character either centered or dwarfed by his surroundings. Across these variations, Manit maintains a dynamic tension between performance and documentation, illusion and reality.
Internationally exhibited at the Venice Biennale (Thailand, 2003), the Bienal de São Paulo (1998), and the Asia Pacific Triennial (2009)—with earlier appearances in Cities on the Move (1997–99) and PhotoEspaña (2001)—Pink Man secured wide recognition. Honors include the Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Prize (2007) and France’s Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (2014). Works from the series are held by institutions such as the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery | GOMA, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum; the anthology Pink Man Story (2021) consolidates the project’s two-decade scope.
