Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a city built around its temples. There are more than three hundred within the city limits, each with its own character, its own level of activity, its own relationship between the sacred and the everyday. Monks in orange robes, marigold garlands left on altars, a grandmother lighting incense while someone else photographs the same shrine with a phone. Everything coexists. This project moves through that coexistence without forcing a reading. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep above the city, Wat Chedi Luang in the centre, the smaller neighbourhood temples where the gong is the only sound at dawn. Between them, the market stalls selling traditional textiles, a coffee tasting in the highlands where the beans are still on the branch, a waterfall an hour outside the city. A young woman smiling at a handicraft stall. A monk prostrated in prayer on a stone floor. Chiang Mai does not separate its spiritual life from its daily life. That is what makes it worth photographing slowly