The Women who keep Bali breathing

A visual tribute to the women of Bali — from dancers to temple caretakers — who preserve tradition through ritual, ceremony, and everyday devotion. This series honors their strength, grace, and vital role in keeping Balinese culture alive.

In Bali, tradition lives not only in temples or dances — it lives in the hands of women.

From the break of dawn, women move like quiet architects of life. They gather offerings, braid palm leaves into intricate canang sari, and balance towers of fruit and flowers on their heads as they walk to the temple — acts of beauty, devotion, and strength performed daily, almost invisibly. These rituals are not performed for show. They are offerings to the gods, to the ancestors, and to the earth. And they are the pulse of Balinese culture.

My photographic work seeks to honor these women — not only the dancers of Legong, with their dramatic eye movements and centuries-old gestures, but the priests, the mothers, the market sellers, the spiritual guides. Women who sing during cremation ceremonies. Women who prepare their children for trance rituals. Women who both carry and become tradition.

In a rapidly modernizing island shaped increasingly by tourism and global influence, these women act as both anchors and bridges. They protect the old ways — sometimes quietly, sometimes defiantly — while negotiating their evolving roles in society.

This series is a tribute to their presence: grounded, graceful, and unwavering. It asks us to look beyond the postcard-perfect performances, and see the feminine force that weaves daily life into sacred continuity. In Bali, culture doesn’t just survive. It breathes — because women keep breathing life into it.