The Xishuangbanna Photo Festival usually operates under a broad theme, "One Great River," which was also the focus back in 2025. The works I curated to exhibit that year carried the atmosphere of flowing water, though perhaps not in the most literal sense. I wanted to stretch the boundaries of the theme while still keeping the presence of people and the river alive.

For instance, Audsadang Satsadee’s project, Living on the Cloud, looked at how urban laborers spend their scarce leisure time in the big city. While it did not feature a river directly, it captured ordinary lives unfolding against a backdrop where water silently shaped their realities, like the image of a couple sitting by the water at dusk with an oil refinery looming behind them. In a similar way, Sukrit Patjuntadusit used a unique film soup process to mirror the environmental struggles of Rayong province.

By late 2026, the Xishuangbanna Photo Festival will return, and the selection I have gathered this time feels more direct. It focuses closely on human lives bound to the water. These four projects explore the idea of "Habitat" through different contexts, each tied to a river or a sea. By narrowing their focus, these artists allow us to see the deeper, quieter movements of human existence. The collection ranges from traditional documentary work to new storytelling methods, alongside close observations of the cultural threads that bind a specific place, its people, and the objects within their shared habitat.

Athikhom Saengchai’s work, The Unseen Weave: Moklen Spirituality for a Living Planet, documents the fading culture of the Moklen people along the Andaman coast. Their deep bond with nature is sustained through animist beliefs, a relationship that raises urgent questions about conservation. This leads into the idea of nature worship as a sacred code, a framework that encourages humans to respect the supernatural in order to protect the natural world itself. In Shinto belief, for example, the Japanese speak of eight million gods or spirits residing in all things, particularly in the natural elements that require care. We see this closer to home as well, where the Hmong and Lisu communities hold a deep reverence for ancestral "ghost forests," keeping these areas strictly preserved and respected.

In contrast, Chalit Saphaphak’s Water looks at human life and the movement of water through the lens of modern engineering. The project examines the irrigation systems of Suphan Buri province, where water does not simply flow by nature but is managed through a network of sluice gates, water pumps, and concrete canals. Instead of chasing the romantic, pristine views of rivers or traditional streamside life that many photographers prefer, Chalit focuses on the hardware of water management. He views the landscape as an interconnected system of life, water, society, and history, capturing the reality of the present without falling into cheap nostalgia for an old rural past.

The Bang Rakam Model by Jirawat Tunprasert is a project I previously published in CTypeMag and discussed in my book Why Photography?. It deals with water management in a way that echoes Chalit’s work, yet here, the heavy hand of engineering directly impacts the livelihood of entire communities. It shows another side of water, one where human intervention alters the natural cycle completely.

“The Bang Rakam Model clearly demonstrates an ongoing event and the results left behind simultaneously. These events are repeating and worsening every year due to global environmental fluctuations that are hard to manage in a short time. It is worth considering whether solutions that worked in the past are still effective. Images of real consequences work in relation to time, which moves forward without stopping. They affect the surroundings and are linked to life and death, both for the general public and individuals. This highlights the great importance and undeniable power of photography created from real situations.” — From Why Photography?

Observing what remains in a specific landscape can reveal how modern forces blend with ancient local beliefs. Thanachai Tankvaraluk’s Naga Land captures the various forms of Naga statues scattered across northeastern Thailand. Phaya Naga (The mythical Thai serpent. Guardian of waters and temples, shielding the divine) , originally a great serpent spirit dwelling in the underworld, was believed by ancient Isan communities to have carved out the Mekong River during a mythical battle. Today, in the digital age, the Naga has been reframed by the state and private businesses as an economic driver. This new version of the myth fuels tourism, spiritual enterprises, and entertainment. The statues in Thanachai’s photographs mark a profound shift, where an ancient sacred being that once granted rain and agricultural fertility is now expected to bring personal wealth and financial luck in ways no one could have anticipated.

These four works are tied together with water as the constant element. We see ancient beliefs that demand urgent preservation alongside myths adapting rapidly to the desires of the modern market, and we see water management that helps those downstream while leaving others to bear the consequences. Each story exists in its own distinct context. Together, they behave like the ripples made by a stone dropped into a river, meeting, overlapping, altering one another, and then quietly fading away, true to their own nature, and to ours.