Sylvain Holtermann
About
Sylvain Holtermann is a French photographer born in Nepal in 1970. He began taking pictures as a child and quickly developed a passion for photography and darkroom techniques. His teenage years were shaped by key encounters that influenced his photographic style.
Keen to explore the world, he travelled to China at seventeen with a few rolls of film, spending a year studying and discovering. In 1991, he returned to Beijing for another year with a small Kodak grant. There he held his first solo exhibition. Back in France, he engaged in various photographic projects and was invited to the Young International Photography Festival (Niort, France) in 1994.
Holtermann moved to Hong Kong in 1995. Working with both film and digital, he sees photography as a direct way to explore common and unfamiliar territories through a poetic lens. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in France, China, and Russia, and has appeared in international magazines and photobooks.
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Selective Biography
1970 - Born in Kathmandu, Nepal.
1980 - First photographs taken with a Kodak Pocket Instamatic.
1988 - Goes to China.
1991 - Kodak grant and second year in China.
1992 - Solo exhibition Nuits de Chine at the French Cultural Centre in Beijing (also shown at French Cultural Centres in Shanghai and Guangzhou).
1993 - Group exhibition at La Maison de la Chine, Paris.
1994 - Travels to Vietnam.
1995 - Invited to the Rencontres de la Jeune Photographie Internationale in Niort, France. Group exhibition at Villa Pérochon.
1995 - Settles in Hong Kong.
1996 - Founds the group Å with photographers Jérôme Galland and Sandrine Expilly.
1998 - Vietnam images published in Paroles magazine, Hong Kong.
2000 - Group exhibition of Å at the Prieuré Saint-Vincent, Chartres, France.
2005 - Shifts focus to electronic music as monosite (released on label monème; performances at SAND Festival HK, White Noise Records, Para Site.).
2020 - Returns to photography with the Hong Kong Revisited project.
2022 - Interview and portfolio in photography journal Zaptronic.
2024 - Portfolio in Deadpan Magazine.
2024 - Exhibition Résonance with Elsa Jeandedieu and Takeshi Shikama at Boogie Woogie Photography Gallery (Hong Kong) as part of French May 2024.
2024 - Solo exhibition Hong Kong Revisited at Space Place Gallery, Nizhny Tagil, Russia.
2024 - Happening Happenstance, collective photobook published by éphémère, Tokyo.
2024 - Bridges, collective exhibition at Galerie Kraemer, Paris.
2025 - Cinq paysages de France, series commissioned by the French Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macau.
2025 - In The Modern World, collective photobook published by Woofer Magazine.​
Sylvain Holtermann is represented by
Boogie Woogie Photography in Hong Kong
www.boogiewoogiephotography.com
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Contact
Instagram: @hk_revisited