Featuring photographs made in Iceland during 2016, 2018, and 2019, First Stone for a Film is inspired by Chris Marker’s 1983 film Sans Soleil, during which the narrator states, “In Iceland, I laid the first stone of an imaginary film.” Motivated by Marker’s poetic handling of time, travel, and geography, Holzhauer’s work from Iceland situates human civilization in the precarious expanse of geologic time.

Holzhauer received an MFA degree from UCLA in 2007 and is currently a Lecturer of Fine Arts at the USC Roski School of Art and Design.