Laureate Bourse du Talent 2024 : Guillaume Holzer

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The result of eight years of living and working with sea nomad communities in Indonesia, the “Nomadic Territory” series is an ode to nomadism and a reflection on freedom, identity and the profound relationship between man and the sea. These photographs, taken in the Komodo archipelago, invite us on a journey where mobility becomes an exploration of the self and the world.

Across shimmering waters and endless horizons, Guillaume Holzer shares his own quest for identity, meaning and belonging, reflecting the beauty and complexity of nomadism as a way of life and philosophy. This is a journey into the relationship between place, mobility and identity, where he explores the function of deterritorialization and the components of identity and territory, inviting the reader to traverse the realms of nomadism through the history of the Bajau and Bugis communities. Nomadism symbolizes physical and intellectual freedom, the process of liberation from territorial or ideological constraints. It represents resistance to rootedness and an openness to fluidity and transformation.

Having freed himself, the nomad can settle elsewhere, adopt new norms and create new relationships with his environment. However, this «reterritorialization» is temporary; it enables his permanent movement and change and, in a way, condemns him to be free.

The “Nomadic Territory” series series was also the subject of a handmade book, accompanied by 41 images, texts and sketches, self-published in 30 copies, published in July 2023.

Guillaume Holzer has worked in various countries with tribal communities such as the First Nations in British Columbia, the Bajau in the Komodo archipelago and the Rapa Nui on Easter Island. In 2010, he founded an NGO dedicated to coral reef conservation, and during these years he became a de facto photographer, as he had to document his NGO’s work for donor reports. He developed a taste for photography. Self-taught, he chose to continue this documentary work, seeking contemporary expression of the transformation of our world.

Through his professional activity, Guillaume Holzer has come into contact with humanity in all its multiple, complex and primordial aspects. Eight years of living and working with nomadic sea communities in Indonesia, as well as studying economics and working for an NGO, have all contributed to forging a very personal and complex world ethic.

After several international group shows, he recently presented his work in two solo exhibitions: «Nomadism» at the Delta Gallery during the Kyotographie festival in Kyoto (Japan) and the “Nomadic Territory” series at the Galerie Analog Club in Paris (France). “At the crossroads of the paradox that opposes ecology and economy lies energy, the expression of power; energetic and therefore economic.”

Site internet : https://gholzer.com/