During lockdown, I was granted a dispensation to photograph Athens at night. Alone in the street, I felt locked out, as if in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Despite reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), everyone seemed to turn a blind eye to the encroaching apocalypse. I thought I was documenting the pandemic, trying to react to the exceptional, to conduct a fictitious investigation into an imagined self-destruction of humanity.
In the darkness, before the closed eyes of an entire planet, amid statues and debris, stunned, I felt like my flash was revealing the scars of our extinction. Walking alone in the streets of Athens, I was surrounded by the relics of a daily life brutally abandoned, just like that of Pompeii. I wanted to explore the idea of a ghost town, but what ghost is spookier than that of the future?
Nicolas Hermann is a visual artist who uses photography, video and sound to understand better his relationship with the world and those around him. Through the creation of installations, experimentation and collaborations, he places transversality at the core of his practice by multiplying the means of expression and experiences. He continuously incorporates new print or image-making techniques into his work, whether for printing, editing or book-making. Influenced by science-fiction movies and astronomy, his work evolves in a hypersensitised, nocturnal and liminal universe, allowing for the decontextualisation of beings and objects.
Submit your work to be considered for solo or group exhibitions in Head On Photo Festival. The last day to submit work is Sunday, 23 March.
Submit your photo series to be considered for solo or group exhibitions in Head On Photo Festival 2025. Submissions close 11:59pm Sunday 23 March Sydney time (GMT+11)
