Iain McKell
The New Gypsies
HC, 27,5 x 20 cm., 127 pp.
Prestel 2011
"The New Gypsies are a group of people seeking an alternative to western capitalist society by living in simplicity, at close contact with nature and moving from place to place on horse-drawn caravans. They are punks in the landscape, born out of the counterculture of the 60s and 70s, as well as the rave culture of the 90s. The New Gypsies do not share a common ethnographical origin, a spirituality, or political stand. They share an ideal that a different way of living is possible.
Iain McKell spent the last ten years documenting and living with various travelers. McKell?s use of fashion aesthetics, a romanticized pallet of colors, and his intentional rejection of many of the visual traits of traditional documentary photography, offers an unsettlingly beautiful series of photographs of this invisible and ignored community." (Fashion Space gallery, London)