Lalashan TEMU: Keeping home in the frame, and walking his own path back to the tribe

Some people come home because the place is familiar. Some come home because they already know there is still work they want to finish here.

TEMU is a young person from Lalashan. In recent years he has returned to tribal life, and he now teaches as a substitute teacher at Lalashan Elementary School. Beyond the classroom, photography and documentary filmmaking are the work he has chosen and the work he does well.

Over two or three years of youth exchange and accompaniment, we came to know TEMU slowly. He does not rush to stand in front of a crowd. When the talk turns to place, culture, images, and the future he wants, his own thinking is clear. Most important: he is willing to come home.

He hopes that one day his camera can keep recording Lalashan, the people of the tribe, and Atayal life and culture.

Youth need more than a chance. They need a stage that can accumulate.

This is something we have learned more deeply while walking with young people in place. Ability is often already there. What is missing is a way to begin, a platform that can see them, and someone willing to stay long enough for the work to last.

So we began inviting TEMU into local documentation — event images, portraits, and work that is happening now — so that each shoot could become a body of work, and a direction of his own.

In 2026 we became more deliberate about asking him into important events and local records. The point is not “hire a photographer.” The point is that the images should be understood, chosen, and kept by a young person who actually lives on this land. The same place looks different in different hands. We hope more of the Lalashan images that remain will be made, and told, by tribal youth.

From one young person toward a local record-keeping practice

We have also begun talking with TEMU about a longer horizon — not only this year’s event, and not only the next film. Could next year, the year after, and further on, a local image-keeping practice slowly take shape? Young people interested in photography, film, and cultural record could connect. Important people, stories, culture, daily life, and change could have someone who stays with them. One day it might even become a working team or organization. So that young people do not have to leave home in order to use what they know — they can bring that craft back, and become part of the place.

Everyone has a way of taking part in home

We do not believe place-making requires everyone to open a shop, start a company, or do something large. Some people cook. Some people grow. Some people design. Some people tell stories. TEMU chose the camera.

On the day of this gathering he still carried his gear, watching and shooting from different corners. His partner came too, staying with the day’s record. It is a simple picture, and one we like: work, life, relationship, hope, and home do not have to be split apart.

When a young person finds work they are willing to stay with, what we can do is walk a little further and make more chances that actually accumulate. TEMU may still be lifting a camera at one event after another. We hope that years from now, those images will already belong to Lalashan — and that what he recorded will not only be the story of a place, but the story of a young person who chose to return to his land and live a dream into ordinary days.