FAITH IN TRANSITION
Set in Northwest Pakistan, this project explores the intimate reality of religious conversions within a small indigenous community, balancing animism and Islam. For centuries, the Kalash have lived in the remote Hindu Kush mountains, their traditions woven into rituals of dance, color, and fire. Yet, with the Muslim world as their long-standing neighbor, change has always been at the edge of their existence. For Kalash youth, growing up means navigating an identity shaped by both heritage and change..
In Islam, conversion is a one-way path: an irreversible commitment. Last year alone, 90 Kalash embraced the faith, part of a growing wave that has seen hundreds leave their ancestral beliefs, within a population of just 4,000. Conversion, for some, is a personal act of love or survival, offering relief and a sense of belonging to the majority. For others, it brings profound loss and disconnection.
But for many, change begins at home. As it is often the parents who convert, the children find themselves at a crossroad; torn between ancestral customs, and Islamic practice. This shift is not just about faith, but about belonging, raising profound questions of continuity, choice, and the pressure to take sides. We experience the quiet tensions of youthhood, revealing the uncertainty of a generation navigating imposed change. Each image is a dialogue between past and present, where childhood, faith, and identity intersect in ways both personal, and universal.
“if you can never return, what happens to the part of you that stays behind”
Laura Riis (b. 2002, Denmark) is a documentary photographer exploring community, religion, and societal change. She began her career photographing indigenous communities in Latin America and Pakistan before interning at Magnum Photos in Paris in 2024. With a background in cultural studies, she focuses on long-term projects that examine personal and collective transitions.
Having spent part of her childhood in India, she developed a deep curiosity for how people shape their identities and navigate faith, culture, and belonging. Her latest project explores religious conversion among young people, a subject she will continue to investigate for years to come. Through portraiture and environmental photography, she creates an intimate dialogue between past and present, offering a nuanced perspective on transformation within, and beyond the boundaries of traditio