Open Call Winner 2022

ISMAEL BAZRI

Series “Islam Goes to Hollywood”

Ismael Bazri

France

Ismaël Bazri was born in Valence in 1994. He studied History at the University of Grenoble in 2014 and moved to Paris in 2018, where he undertook a Master’s degree at the Sorbonne in Human Sciences and specialized in the medieval Mediter- ranean world.

He embarked on self-taught photography, and after several experiences in fashion photography, Ismaël Bazri joined the Art and image section of the Kourtrajmé School. He pursues a photographic work focused on the coexistence of the banal and the sacred, the urban and the rural, the masculine and the feminine, and practices spontaneous colour photography. Impregnated by contemporary fashion photography, he offers a lively look at the world around him and of which he is a part. His photographic practice is intuitive and conversational - sometimes staged. It represents an important current of emerging photography, particularly in its mode of production and appearance.

After an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in 2020, the Ateliers Médicis welcome him in residence for the year 2021. In 2022, Ismaël Bazri participates in the exhibition «À l’Oeuvre» at Chanel’s 19M. Selected by the New York Times Portfolio in March, his series Islam Goes To Hollywood has been screened at the Rencontres De La Photographie in Arles for the Night Of The Year in July 2022.

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Islam Goes to Hollywood

The photographs I take represent my dual culture, a popular, and Western culture because I was born and raised in France, and an older and religious culture, Islam, inherited from my parents. By crossing these two universes which may seem incompatible, I try to transcribe the beauty of their union.