Gipsy Camp 1910

David Kakabadzé made this photograph, Gipsy Camp, during a period about which, sadly, I know very little. Immediately I want to know, who were these people? Why were they there? What did Kakabadzé make of them? The photograph is a study in contrasts, the angular forms of the tents, echoed in the sharp hats of the men who stand tall among the prone figures in the foreground. Their dark clothes and sharp features sit against the lighter forms of the blankets in which many of the others are wrapped. I keep looking at the figure standing in the centre of the shot. He holds a doll, or maybe it's a lamb. This image invites me to imagine the lives of others, people I know nothing about, and so it reminds me of the work of someone like Dorothea Lange, another artist interested in capturing the everyday lives of those who were so often ignored. Art is about looking, but maybe, more importantly, it's about seeing.