Jan Banning: Bloedbanden

On Saturday, December 13, Fotomuseum Hilversum will open the exhibition Bloedbanden: Reconciliation after the Genocide in Rwanda, featuring work by photographer Jan Banning and journalist Dick Wittenberg. At the same time, the eponymous book will be released, including an essay by philosopher Marjan Slob. The exhibition presents powerful double portraits of perpetrators and survivors of the genocide.

Opening

Sign up now for the official opening and book launch on Saturday, December 13, at 14:30. (doors open at 14:00).

Jan Banning’s photographs do not simply depict victims and perpetrators: in each double portrait, we see people side by side who share a direct and painful past. These are survivors confronting those who have inflicted irreparable suffering on them or their families, such as the killing of a loved one. Combined with the stories of Dick Wittenberg, the images convey the immense but profoundly human process of reconciliation.

With Bloedbanden, Banning and Wittenberg offer a rare, nuanced, and confronting perspective on reconciliation. In a time when deep wounds are again inflicted worldwide through conflict and violence, the project does not provide easy answers, but it presents a powerful example of healing and humanity.

The series has already won seven international awards and has previously been shown in cities including Boston, Cortona, and New York. Recently, Banning presented the project at several locations in the United States, including Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies and the Ford Hall Forum in Boston, which has previously hosted speakers such as Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was also interviewed for Photography as Activism by Michelle Bogre. Banning’s work is represented by the Robert Klein Gallery (Boston) and Galerie Fontana (Amsterdam).

Bloedbanden is being shown in the Netherlands for the first time at Fotomuseum Hilversum.

About the creators
Jan Banning is an internationally acclaimed photographic artist, known for Bureaucratics and winner of, among others, a World Press Photo Award and eleven Zilveren Camera awards.

Dick Wittenberg is a journalist and writer who worked for many years at NRC. Together with Banning, he won the Bob den Uyl Prize for their earlier book about Dickson, Malawi.

Marjan Slob is a philosopher and essayist. Until April 2025, she served as the Dutch National Thinker (Denker des Vaderlands). She writes for publications including de Volkskrant.