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What do you think of when you think of the Maldives?
In popular imagination, the Maldivian archipelago is often reduced to an Instagram carousel of sparkling beaches, turquoise lagoons, overwater luxury bungalows and villas, and infinity pools that flow into the Indian Ocean. But for photographer Ali Assadhu, the true spirit of the Maldives lies far beyond this polished image — it is deeply embedded within the islanders’ traditions, rituals, and everyday life. His ongoing project Local Living seeks to reframe how we see the Maldives, capturing a living culture that is rich, diverse, and increasingly fragile in the face of climate change and commercial tourism.
Local Living was born when Ali Assadhu returned to his island roots during the lockdown, leaving city life behind. What began as a quest for inspiration grew into a deep admiration for the traditions and cultures. Today, Assadhu’s work is rooted in the island of Kinbidhoo in the Thaa Atoll, where he documents intimate cultural practices that rarely find space in mainstream narratives.
In his series on Maldivian Eid celebrations, he captures the vibrant, folklore-infused tradition of Beyya — masked figures crafted from coconut leaves and paraded by villagers to the rhythm of drums. These sea-monster-like effigies, built communally under the sacred Nika Gas tree, evoke oral histories and collective memory passed down through generations. The ritual, believed to have roots in pre-Islamic folklore, involves collective labor, music, and indigenous storytelling traditions.
In another series, Koadi, he turns his lens to a uniquely Maldivian Eid ritual, where islanders erect palm frond poles only to sneakily sabotage each other’s creations in the spirit of playful mischief. These customs — performed not for tourists but for community — reveal a deeper cultural life hidden beneath the mainstream, tourism-focused narrative of the Maldives.
These celebrations are deeply embedded in the social and ecological fabric of Maldivian island life. In a time when rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and plastic pollution threaten both ecology and tradition, Assadhu’s work, part ethnographic record and part cultural revival, assumes the vital and radical role of witnessing.
The Maldives is among the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world. Its geography — a flat, dispersed group of low islands — makes it especially susceptible to sea-level rise, coral bleaching, and extreme weather events. With an average elevation of just 1.5 meters above sea level, rising oceans and coastal erosion threaten to displace communities, submerge ancestral lands, and wipe out traditions, cultures, and cultural heritages rooted in specific geographies. These environmental changes don’t just endanger the land — they imperil the cultures rooted in that land.
In documenting these rituals, Assadhu also captures the islanders’ sustainable relationship with nature. From palm leaves and coir ropes to driftwood and handwoven mats, the materials used in local festivals are drawn directly from the land and sea. These are ecologies of use, shaped by generations of intimate knowledge — a stark contrast to the imported aesthetics of resort culture.
Assadhu’s visual anthropology also raises broader questions about who gets to represent the Maldives’ island cultures? What stories are lost when tourism prioritises aesthetics over authenticity? How can photography act as a tool for cultural continuity?
Tourism accounts for nearly a third of the Maldives’ economy, and its visual narrative is tightly controlled. Most photographic work is produced for hotel marketing, depicting luxury and seclusion rather than everyday life. Assadhu’s work pushes against that tide, offering a ground-level view of a nation too often seen only from the air. By turning his camera inward, Assadhu reframes how the Maldives is seen and understood. The stories he captures are not idyllic images frozen in time; they are part of a living archive that speaks to resilience, adaptation, and the importance of documenting what might soon disappear.
As climate change threatens to erase the Maldives’ physical geographies, projects like Ali Assadhu’s Local Living remind us that cultural landscapes too are endangered by the ongoing climate collapse. Through Assadhu’s lens, we see that heritage is not static or decorative, but a dynamic form of resilience. In telling the stories of his island’s elders, rituals, and children, he also shows us what it means to live on the frontlines of both profound natural beauty and heartwrenching man-made loss.
