Amateur Photographer Tuesday, March 03, 2026

Blood Bonds: Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda is a profound and affecting photobook framing together survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A collaboration between photographer Jan Banning and journalist Dick Wittenberg, it includes an incisive philosophical essay by Marjan Slob. Collectively the book examines what reconciliation looks like when those who inflicted devastating violence now live side-by-side with those they harmed.

The heart of the book is a series of 18 joint portraits. Banning’s photographic language is deeply human, deliberate and formally composed. There’s a nod to the lighting and stillness of Dutch Golden Age painting. Survivors and perpetrators sit together in village interiors with a surprising lack of theatre. Pigs wander through one room and a man and woman share a rough wooden bench. Two men perch tensely on a small patterned chair; judges appear next to the men they once convicted. Nothing is dramatised. The restrained clarity of Banning’s approach allows the emotional weight to emerge from posture, proximity and expression.

The project is grounded in the history of one of the late 20th century’s most devastating atrocities. In 100 days, up to one million people, mainly Tutsis but also Hutus, were killed by neighbours, teachers, clergy and even relatives. This context is outlined with precision in the book. The conflict’s roots in colonial engineering, ethnic propaganda and civil war are traced. Crucially, it focuses not on the violence but on what followed. The community-based reconciliation programmes that asked people to face those who had destroyed their families.

Slob’s essay adds a thoughtful layer and counterpoint to the photographs. It probes the difference between reconciliation and forgiveness, underscoring the fragility of trust and the impossibility of easy narratives.

Blood Bonds is a book about hope after atrocity and how life can continue in a country shaped by conflict. Peter Dench