Jimmy Nelson is a Dutch- British photographer who began his photographic journey in 1987. He has spent over 30 years traveling the world to visit and photograph some of the last indigenous communities. His work has subsequently been used to garner support and help restore a sense of pride around the indigenous way of life.
Read MoreWhat started as a naive engagement with the people he met during work assignments, has over a period of three decades turned into a personal project. The book ‘Before they pass away‘ is an homage to the cultures he will probably never fully understand, but who will never stop luring him to visit.
The book’s success and the responses to it have enabled and encouraged Jimmy to continue this journey. In October 2018, Nelson published the first interactive book ‘Homage to Humanity‘, for which he visited another unique 34 indigenous cultures around the globe. The book is accompanied by the Webby Award-winning ‘Companion App‘ that makes it possible to scan every image in the book and brings it to life with exclusive films, interviews, and 360 film material.
This allows people from all generations to experience the making and context of the image and opens the doors to step into another world where wealth has a different meaning. Jimmy strongly believes that if you change the way you look at people, the people you look at change. And if that change is powerful enough, it will gather momentum to affect the whole of humanity.
A message that today he is promoting through talks at international conferences and museum exhibitions. With the proceedings of his art projects, the Jimmy Nelson Foundation was set up to take it a step further in supporting the communities on the ground.
Text courtesy Patricia Low Contemporary.
