Let’s Go Fly a Kite

Kin Coedel doesn’t remember the name of the documentary he saw in late 2019 about Uttarayan, an annual kite festival in western India. But he vividly recalls being awed by the YouTube video playing on his laptop screen. “The shape of the kites, the lines of thread, all these beautiful things flying in the sky—it really intrigued me,” says Coedel, who lives in Paris. Three weeks later, in January of 2020, the photographer flew to the state of Gujarat and then traveled around the region to witness the celebration himself. During the weeklong Uttarayan, people parade brightly colored kites through the streets of Ahmedabad and Vadodara and Mumbai from dawn to dusk, reveling in the end of winter and anticipating the spring harvest season. As Coedel snapped pictures and spoke with locals, he was moved by the sight of Hindus and Muslims of all ages eating and playing together. “At the beginning, I just wanted to make images that were compositionally appealing, because I didn’t know much about the culture before I arrived,” he says. “It evolved into not only creating images that capture the abstract shapes of the kites, but also documenting this magical time that people were enjoying.” The trip took place just months before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and he hopes to return this winter to photograph the festival again. “When I look at these pictures, I can’t help thinking that some of these children’s lives must have completely changed,” Coedel says.