He was still in Donbass a few weeks before the start of the Russian invasion, to witness the fighting between Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine is a country that the photojournalist Guillaume Herbaut tirelessly traveled for twenty years. Twenty years at the heart of upheavals and revolutions and closer to the population. A selection of his photos in large format is currently on display on the gates of the Hôtel du Département de Haute-Garonne in Toulouse, as a prelude to the MAP photo festival.

Present for the hanging a few days ago, Guillaume Herbaut had the opportunity to comment on some of his shots that he himself selected for this exhibition. Like that of a young man, pro-European activist injured in the eye and smoking a pipe, priced in Independence Square in kyiv in 2014, during the bloody crackdown of Maidan: “In the costume, in the beret, it takes up the symbols that we saw in the resistance against the Nazis during the Second World War, so for me it is really symbolic of a Ukraine which always resists against something“.

Orange Revolution, bloody repression of Maidan, war in Donbass, in twenty years Guillaume Herbaut has witnessed all the fights of the Ukrainians. A people and a country rewarded, he became deeply attached: “They fought for their independence, they fought in 2004 for democracy, again in 2014 for democracy, and today against an invasion. In fact, it touches me enormously, there is something in these people that is very, very strong, that’s why I’m going there“.

Guillaume Herbaut has just won one of the prestigious World Press Photo prizes, Europe 2022 long-term work section. The third for the photographer from the VU agency who regularly collaborates with the daily The world.

“Ukraine, Desired Land” – until April 26, 2022 – Hôtel du Department of Haute Garonne1 boulevard de la Marquette 31000Toulouse – Free access