When we talk about Masculinity and its power dynamics, it usually weave through two main threads: the balance between genders and the unspoken order within male hierarchies.

The Becoming explores the journey of young, working-class men stepping into adulthood, set against the relentless sprawl of a city they help shape—hands molding both concrete and their identities. This dual transformation mirrors the construction of gender itself, with each brick laid resonating with the silent crafting of power.

While the project does not explicitly unravel the male hierarchy of Nepal’s layered society, it gestures toward the divide between urban and rural, where these young men, shaped by the fields and hills, arrive as outsiders. For them, masculinity is a dance with economic barriers, a pursuit of respect. Kathmandu becomes the proving ground, a step before they cast their eyes further, to foreign lands that promise more.

Their transient lives tell stories of upheaval—a chaos of failed negotiations and silent, normalized violence that marks their passage into manhood. With new marriages arranged, and young children whose eyes they haven’t yet learned to meet, emotional connections feel distant, yet they carry on with a tender stoicism. In their silence, they embody the raw resilience that forges society’s image of true men.

———

The Becoming was born from curiosity, a quest for understanding. In 2014, while documenting stories of domestic violence in Nepal, I would catch sight of teenage silhouettes bathed in the weak amber glow of unfinished concrete structures, cutting through the pitch-dark night. Those fleeting images echoed my mother’s stories of my father’s youth—his days as a young labourer working on Taipei’s construction sites in the 1970s.

Different cities, different time, yet the same silent expectation: the unspoken trial by hardship for men on the fringes, striving to rise. My father’s guarded secrets pushed me to seek clues among these young workers, perhaps as a way to untangle the roots of his emotionally disregulated ways.

However, hardship was not all consuming. There was adventure too—seeing and exploring this alien city. Through the young men, together, and often for the first time.

The Becoming

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Blue Wanderings