The greenery of Malé

In October 2024, I put together a small series. 18 photos of greenery in Malé.

The idea was simple. Malé is a concrete jungle. Dense, cramped, not much room for anything that isn't functional. But plants exist here in ways that feel almost defiant. They grow out of walls. They push through gaps between buildings. A single tree on a narrow street casts enough shadow to change the whole feeling of a block.

I wanted to show that. A version of Malé that looked almost like a fairy land, lush and green, against everything people expect from a city this dense.

I posted 18 photos and then stopped. Not because the project was done. It was because limiting myself to one subject started to feel wrong. There were too many other things happening around me. The greenery was one thread in the whole fabric, not the fabric itself.

But looking back at those 18, I think it's some of the most cohesive work I've made. Specific enough to have a point of view. Not trying to say everything at once.

That tension between going deep on one thing and staying open to everything is something I'm still figuring out.