Looking for Home: Jimmy Nelson Behind the Lens and on Stage

What started as a story about adventure, photography, and encounters quickly turned out to be a much more personal story: a lifelong search for identity, connection, and ultimately for home. Nelson literally takes his audience along in his story. The audience actually becomes part of his show.

Nelson talked about his adventures in Mongolia and the urge that has been pulling him out into the world since he was young. As a child, he lost something he couldn’t quite name for a long time. By chance, he picked up a camera. From that moment on, photography became his way of exploring the world and getting to know himself.

His photos are more than portraits. They are mirrors. For forty years, Nelson hardly dared to look into that mirror. Instead, he pointed his camera at others: at their strength, beauty, pride, and humanity. By spending years investing in the people he met, he eventually discovered more and more about himself.

Nelson finds that feeling of being at home in the moment. Often literally on the move, high above the world, on a plane departing from the Netherlands. He talked about how he leaves everything behind to go on a new adventure. To something that might not be found outside of him, but ultimately within himself.

Nelson’s photos didn’t just happen by chance either. He doesn’t wait for a spontaneous moment, but consciously invites the people he photographs to show themselves as strong and proud as they feel. He asks them to stand in front of the camera at their most powerful, with their culture and identity on display.

Through the Human Lens

For more than thirty years, Nelson has been searching for human connection during his travels. A glimpse of this was already visible during the preview. In his theater performance Through the Human Lens, he goes deeper into this. Photography turns out to be just the starting point of a personal story about seeing and being seen, and about the power of an encounter.

On November 25 and 26, Jimmy Nelson returns to Muziekgebouw Eindhoven with his theater show. Want to be there? Then don’t wait too long to buy tickets, because the show on November 26 is already sold out. The last tickets for November 25 are now on sale!

View all photos from the preview here.