Photographer #394: Jan Banning

Jan Banning, 1954, The Netherlands, was born from Dutch-East-Indies immigrant parents. He studied Social and Economic History at the University of Nijmegen. His work is a mixture of photojournalism, documentary and fine-art photography. He has released an impressive amount of photography books. His most recent monograph is Comfort Women, a series of portraits of Indonesian women who were victims of forced sexual labor during the second World War. During the war the Japanese military set up a system for sex slavery, forcing women into prostitution in military brothels. Most of the women suffered physical and emotional consequences ever since. In 2008 he introduced the book Bureaucratics, showing offices of members of the executive in various services and levels. The offices have been photographed in eight different countries on five different continents. The project was done with a writer; Will Tinnemans. As they would come by unannounced, Will would interview the employees, keeping them from tidying up the office. For the book Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways he portrayed Dutch and Indonesian men who all worked as forced labor for the Japanese during World War II. They had to build the Burma or Sumatra railroads in miserable conditions leading to the death of many of them. The following images come from the series Comfort Women, Bureaucratics and Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways.

Website: www.janbanning.com