Photographer Matteo Maimone Captures Phuket's Vegetarian Festival

Photographer Matteo Maimone has documented the 2025 Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, Thailand, a nine-day Taoist event where devotees, known as Mah Song or mediums, undergo body piercings and other acts of endurance while in trance, believed to be possessed by deities. Maimone's reportage focuses on the intimate relationship between humans and the divine, portraying the festival not as spectacle but as an act of faith. The images capture moments where pain becomes a shared language, and the body serves as a bridge to the spiritual. The festival involves purification through vegetarian diet and abstinence, followed by processions where mediums, surrounded by incense, drums, and firecrackers, perform piercings without showing pain. Maimone, a documentary photographer based in Asia for over twelve years, aims to highlight tribal cultures and rituals often overlooked by mainstream media. The work was published by Artribune, an Italian art magazine.