Maximilien Bruggmann invite to discover the many facets of his working methods, his travels, his dreams and visions of the world, as well as the «habitat» in which all of this came to be...
The four continents of Maximilien Bruggmann
Maximilien Bruggmann calls his apartment in Yverdon-les-Bains his «biotope»: Here he finds the stability that any world traveller needs. Here is his anchorage, his home, a place to feed and entertain friends and an archive for his photos: the safe haven to which he has returned from each of his sixty trips around the globe.
To the visitor, this biotope, this «Manoir» (villa) of Maximilien’s is more like Ali Baba's treasure chamber. What can one discover there? A jumble of daily-use objects brought back by the photographer from his travels: Vinyl records of folk, jazz and classical music, paintings by Bruggmann the artist, a few posters of his photo exhibitions, shelves with all of his illustrated books, boxes with his photo archives in the form of slides, contact sheets, notebooks... But also human warmth and a kitchen where everything is always ready to pamper guests. You can see and feel that Maximilien Bruggmann has had a full life.
Born in 1934 in Entlebuch, Lucerne, he attended the graphics department at the School of Applied Arts in Lucerne, and then in Bern. At the age of 23, his fascination for the mountains took him on an adventurous journey to Africa, that Africa which would mark him for the rest of his life. He started out hitchhiking in Lausanne – where he worked as a graphic artist – with the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro as a target, which he reached after months of wandering as he travelled through the African continent on foot. However, as with any trip, the destination is only part of the story. It is the journey itself that brings you further and changes you, and it is thanks to it that travelling finds its true meaning. For Maximilien, this journey was the beginning of a long love story with a landscape form which has remained his passion until this day: the largest dry desert in the world, the Sahara – its vastness, its engravings and rock paintings, as well as the Blue People, the Tuareg.
