Jimmy Nelson

Jimmy Nelson began his career as a photographer in 1987 and has since travelled the world documenting indigenous peoples and isolated places. With his images, Nelson wants to provoke a discussion about what the future will look like for these remote and isolated cultures. Many of them are facing the effects of climate change, global industrial expansion and conflict.

Jimmy Nelson is an internationally acclaimed photographer, set designer and director. He works extremely meticulously on each image and can take days to realise his vision. In autumn 2019, around 100 of his images were shown in a major exhibition at Fotografiska in Stockholm. He is represented in Sweden by Willas Contemporary and has exhibited at galleries and institutions in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy, France and elsewhere.

Nelson has described his childhood as filled with warmth, love and adventure as he accompanied his father on geological expeditions in different regions. However, his school years at boarding school were a difficult time that left him feeling exposed, vulnerable and disconnected from the outside world. A trip to Tibet at the age of 18, inspired by Tintin's adventures, was a dramatic turnaround for the better. His father had given him a Zenith B camera and some rolls of 35 mm film. This is how he found his way to photography. Since then, his travels have taken him to far-flung places, where he has captured the beauty of people proud of their cultural heritage. Initially, Jimmy Nelson was drawn to indigenous peoples because they reminded him of the safety and warmth he experienced as a child.

Today, Jimmy Nelson continues to travel the world, pushing himself to the limit, both physically and emotionally. His goal is to portray the beauty and resilience of the human spirit and to tell a story of global unity and kinship - a story that the world needs to embrace more than ever before.