“BIRDS AND FLOWERS HAVE BRIEF LIVES” is an immersive project by Callum Royle combining brutal portraits with confessional scribbles, jarring sounds and hypnotic videos, all capturing tender fragments of humanity. Completed over a six month period spent documenting the streetlife of the disenfranchised among the dark inner-city hallows of modern-day Bangkok, these snapshots reveal the faces of a struggling underbelly. Their daily existence swings from monotony to mutilation, fuelled on cartons of cheap spiced rum, entertainment in violence, be it keychain knuckle duster boxing bouts or whacking fish to death for sport. The result is a decrepit union of photography, video and words, a rickety celebration of the gritty everyday life. Lewd by subject and design, the project is sometimes difficult to stomach and feels like an unforgiving diary of an outlaw, hiding among those ignored, however, it is ultimately an offering of hospitality, a love letter to the rejected, a proposal to reflect on a group of discarded and forgotten souls.