Photographer and filmmaker Gregory Colbert travels the world photographing encounters between humans and large animals. Now his unusual work has found a similarly distinctive forum: the Nomadic Museum, a large stack of cargo containers now residing on pier over the Hudson River in Manhattan.
Colbert's large photos hang from thin wires, showing humans and large animals in close communion. Taken in such farflung locales as Burma, Sri Lanka, Egypt, India, Ethiopia and Kenya. The images are printed on plant paper, a process going back to 13th century Japan.
The museum, built entirely from reusable materials, houses an exhibit called Ashes and Snow. It's a long narrow space with high ceilings, a space Margot Adler describes as "a cross between an Egyptian temple and a Zen garden." Japanese architect Shigeru Ban used cargo containers for walls and large paper tubes for the columns, so the museum can be packed up and moved with ease.
And move it will. The museum and the images go next to Los Angeles, with future stops in Beijing and the Vatican.
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