Phnom Penh’s monasteries were part of my daily life long before I began photographing them for this project. I lived in the city in 2009 and 2010, a block from Wat Ounalom, and often walked through its grounds.
Returning years later with a clearer sense of how I wanted to photograph, I began looking more closely at places I had known by habit. This work follows that act of return, attending to the religious practice, shared work, and ordinary exchanges that shape these monasteries each day.
Over two visits spanning roughly eight weeks, with three weeks between them, I spent the most time at Wat Botum. I returned often enough to get to know a small group of monastics, spending hours folding lotus flowers, accompanying them on errands, and sharing ordinary stretches of the day. Once, after the monks had eaten, I was invited to join the residents and helpers for the same meal in the same place. That invitation grew from time spent together, and some of the relationships formed there have continued since I left.
Wat Ounalom carries a different familiarity: I had known it for years, though I photographed there less intensively on these visits. At Wat Langka, my encounters were briefer.
People I came to know appear by name in the captions; where I did not learn someone’s name, the caption stays with the place or moment.
Across the sequence, the photographs trace how memory, repeated visits, and new relationships changed the way I saw a city I once called home.
