Early work: Kurdistan, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1997-2006)

In 1997 I graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent with a master project on the Kurds, ‘Forbidden People’. In the following years I repeatedly returned to the Kurdish areas in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq to denounce the harsh living conditions of the Kurdish people. Central to this series is the annual celebration of Newroz on March 21. This traditional spring festival, which is celebrated by several peoples, has a distinctly political significance for the Kurds. On that day, the call for human rights, cultural autonomy and independence rings loudest. The resilience of this troubled people made a deep impression on me.

As my interest in the Middle East grew, I widened my scope to Palestine and to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2002. One year later, the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant sent me again to Baghdad to photograph the aftermath of the American invasion.

Other early black-and-white reportage work shown here was made in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina (1997) and in the Kosovo refugee camps in northern Albania (1999).