During August, the Sala Oberta de La Nau hosts the exhibition “Street Children of Victoria Station, Mumbai”, a series of snapshots taken by photographer Benito Pajares during his stay in India.
The photographs in the exhibition were taken during his third trip to India. Initially, Pajares intended to visit different parts of the country, starting his journey from Victoria Station in Mumbai. He went to the station to check train times, and was taken aback by the number of children who had made the station their home. Passengers hardly noticed the kids who spent their time sleeping on benches, smoking crack or sniffing glue. But to a Westerner like Pajares, this drama, commonplace for Indian travellers, needed to be made known. Pajares decided to stay in Mumbai for a few days, and went to Victoria Station where, due to the ban on photographs, he had to evade the police in order to take the snapshots that make up the exhibition.
Some years later, in 2009, Benito Pajares returned to Mumbai, bringing with him a number of photographs in the hope of being able to show the children. However, he only managed to locate two of the boys, through the woman who used to sell them bottles of glue. One of them, the luckier one, worked as a shoe-shine at Chargate station. Through this exhibition, Benito Pajares seeks to sensitise a small part of Valencian society, with the aim of making a stand for the rights of children like those at Victoria Station in Mumbai.