Gregory Colbert

Directing

Born: April 19, 1960

Birthplace: Toronto, Canada

Photographer/filmmaker Gregory Colbert was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1960. He began his career in Paris in 1983 making documentary films on social issues. His first exhibition, "Timewaves", opened to wide critical acclaim in 1992 at the Museum of Elysée in Switzerland. For the next ten years, Colbert went off the grid and did not publicly share his art or show any films. He began traveling the world to photograph and film wondrous interactions between animals and humans. After ten years passed, Colbert returned to present "Ashes and Snow" at the Arsenale in Venice, Italy, in 2002. An immersive experience of nature that combines photographic artworks, films, and soundscapes, housed in a purpose-built traveling structure called the Nomadic Museum. To date, "Ashes and Snow" has attracted over 10 million visitors, making it the most attended exhibition by any living artist in history. With his debut, Photo magazine declared, “A new master is born.” The New York Times, in an article by Alan Riding, stated: "The power of the images comes less from their formal beauty than from the way they envelop the viewer in their mood. . . They are simply windows to a world in which silence and patience govern time."