- Jan Banning
May 4th 1954, Almelo
Dutch photographer and artist. Banning was born in the Netherlands from Dutch-East-Indies parents. He studied social and economic history at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and has been working as a photographer since 1981. A central theme of Banning's practice is state power, having produced series about the long-term consequences of war and the world of government bureaucracy.
Publisher: Ipso Facto, 2003
ISBN 978-90-77386-01-7
144 pages, hardcover, 217 mm x 240 mm
24 photographs + 24 interviews (Jan Banning)
historical introduction: Esther Captain
artist’s statement (personal introduction): Jan Banning
personal impression: Wim Willems
Language: Dutch
In this Dutch-language version of Traces of War, photographer Jan Banning takes 24 men back to World War II. Under the yoke of the Japanese military, they performed forced labor on the Burma and Sumatra Railways. Sixty years later, the scars of that past are still visible. Fifteen Dutch former allied
POWs, Banning’s father among them, and nine Indonesians posed for black and white portraits. Banning photographed the men with their chests bare, the way they labored back then. The men also relate the story of their experiences during the war and how these have affected their lives, hesitantly, at times, but with telling detail.
An introduction and epilogue by experts on Dutch colonial history place these interviews in a larger,
historical context.
Grants
This book and the photo exhibition by the same name have been made possible with financial support from the following Dutch institutions: Stichting Fonds Anna Cornelis, Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten, Stichting Fondsenwerving Militaire Oorlogs- en Dienstslachtoffers (SFMO), Mondriaan Fund, NCDO, and Taxus Holding & Management BV (Bosch and Duin, the Netherlands).
The english translation was made possible with financial support from Stichting Het Gebaar and the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature (NLPVF).
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