Two-meter-high mohawks in technicolor arrays. Full glam makeup. Custom leather jackets. This is the world that Jean Skunk lived and breathed in mid-2010s Bangkok. The punk scene at the time revolved mainly around Baan Bar, which wasn’t a punk bar but would throw events regularly because the owner liked the music. The scene was still too small to host only punk bands so they’d share the stage with hardcore acts, which has always had a much bigger presence in Thailand.

Jean didn’t consider himself a photographer at the time, he was just enjoying shooting and kept at it. His weapon of choice was and still is a 35mm film camera, and he develops and prints everything himself. He taught himself as a way to document his T-shirt brand about ten years ago. After a while, he had a big enough stack of photos of the events from Baan Bar and started showing his work. His best images were compiled in a 37-page zine with Barcelona’s Contrafotografia called Bangkok City Rockers. Although it’s hard to find these days, there are still a few copies floating around, including punk venue Chaos Cafe, which opened a little over a year ago.

When Jean first got interested in punk culture 20 years ago, there weren’t many other people interested in it in Thailand. He was mainly listening to punk bands on MySpace back then and it took years before there was any type of crowd that could be called a scene. (He picked his name because skunks have mohawks.) Eventually, he co-founded the Underground Rising collective, which is still active today. It’s a much different culture here, where the crowd dresses up for the events but it’s not a part of their daily lives and most people hold regular day jobs. He says the events were pretty chill in comparison to Boston, where he’s lived for the past four years and where people like to smash shit up at events.

In Boston, Jean is one of the very few Asian people in the scene, but he’s found them very welcoming. Many of them knew him from his photography online already, so he had a lot of friends before he even landed. He’s currently working as a tattoo artist at Sad Clown City but continues to document the culture in his new surroundings and has expanded into cyanotype collage prints.