Before they pass away is a monumental project by photographer (but I would also say ethnographer) Jimmy Nelson. He found and observed some indigenous tribes in various parts of the globe, “smiled and drank their mysterious brews before taking out his camera”, shared “vibrations, invisible but palpable”.
These poses, evoking a sort of paradoxical family portraits, show on the one hand a closer harmony between the original condition of man and the universe, which in some way are the same entity, on the other hand a contamination (e.g. weapons) and a disintegration imposed by an imperialist subtle tendency that considers this people’s condition as a disease to be eradicated.
To me, they’re wayfarers who don’t move to reach a specific goal or destination, but inhabit encountered landscapes as transits to the Place that makes every land a simple stage on the way back.
They dance in circles because if you spin, you never end.
