Itinerants Mumbai’s nomads

With the rigor of a scientist, David catalogues the itinerant species of Mumbai. He abstracts them from their context and captures them in their most heightened spirits. His photo gallery of characters is reminiscent of our old biology labs, where obsessive professors kept exotic creatures in formalin. Charmayne sets the subjects of David's photos back into movement through poetic inspiration. Her writing reminds us of the mythical dimension of itinerant life, which is present in every civilization. Sedentary societies have indeed always had an ambivalent relationship to the people of the wind, as Japanese villagers call them. Itinerants have been perceived, in turns, as indispensable trading partners, threatening agents of change and objects of desire. David and Charmayne's images and words bring to life some of the multiple avatars of that nomadic spirit that all of us carry deep inside and which refuses to leave.