Guilhem Touya
France
Biography
Guilhem Touya is a photographer, born in 1991 and based in Paris. After studying at business school and spending several years working in advertising agencies and later in communications management, he chose to dedicate himself fully to photography.
Mentored in his professional development by visual artist Catherine Rebois, he has developed an artistic universe centred on nocturnal explorations in remote natural landscapes and the use of artificial lighting.
His work combines the visual precision shaped by his years in advertising with a sensibility influenced by science fiction – including Tarkovsky, Philip K. Dick and Jeff VanderMeer – as well as by a childhood spent close to nature. He transforms photography, traditionally a medium of memory, into a documentary narrative of anticipation.
Through a refined aesthetic, his images blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, inviting reflection on humanity’s place within its environment and on the ephemeral nature of civilisation.
Project
“Chromatic Dystopia” by Guilhem Touya is a nocturnal photographic series that imagines an alternative future where nature has reclaimed the planet in the absence of humans. Touya ventures alone through deserts, forests and mountains at night, using flashlights and coloured gels on-site (without digital editing or photomontage) to illuminate landscapes that seem to oscillate between collapse and rebirth under the stark artificial light.
Inspired by science-fiction visual codes and contemporary anxieties about climate change and urbanisation, the work questions our evolving relationship with the natural world — a world that now feels more distant, mysterious and at times threatening. By excluding humans from the frame, ""Chromatic Dystopia"" invites viewers to reflect on whether they are witnessing a vanished world or a wild new reality emerging without us, offering a poetic yet urgent meditation on environment, perception and the unseen futures we may create.
