Nomads Don’t Have iPads*
[Zunn Taiga, Mongolia, 2007]
Maria Popova’s Brainpickings is always fascinating, but for the sake of productivity I try to occasionally shut down my computer and smell the English roses here in London. So I was glad my friend Allan Casey–author of the lovely book Lakeland–tipped me off on a post about a new tome on nomads. Described by Popova as a “visual anthropology,” this book by the Dutch photographer Jeroen Toirkens and writer Jelle Brandt Corstius looks at nomadic tribes in Russia, Mongolia, The Arctic and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Their lives, judging by some of the images, are both modern and old fashioned.
In an interview with Gizmodo, Toirkens said:
“The most impressive thing about nomads I’ve learned in the past 12 years is their amazing resilience and capacity to adapt to changes. Nomads have been adapting to change for ages. They are living on the edges of our society and earth. Both literally and figuratively.
”
One of my favourite photos is of the Kola Sámi of Russia. Notice the street-light?
The book grew out of Toirkens’ project Nomads Life, which aims to document the life and culture of traditional nomads.
My only quibble is the notion that these are the “world’s last living nomads.” Through The Modern Nomad and the subsequent book, I’m seeking to explore different ideas of nomadism and tribes and communities. As we say in publishing, more TK.
*Headline stolen from Gizmodo.
