Jan Banning is a Dutch photographer and artist based in Utrecht. He was born in Almelo in 1954 to parents from the Dutch East Indies. He studied social and economic history at Radboud University Nijmegen.
He began working as a journalist and photographer in 1981. Since around 2000 he has focused almost entirely on his own projects. His work looks at state power, justice and the long-term effects of war.
His projects include Bureaucratics, about government offices in eight countries, and Law and Order, about criminal justice systems in Colombia, France, Uganda and the United States. The Verdict follows the case of Christina Boyer, who was sentenced to life in prison in Georgia.
His book Blood Bonds: Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Lecturis, 2025) pairs portraits of survivors of the 1994 genocide with the people who killed their family members, together with written testimonies. In 2025 the project won the ZEKE Award for Systemic Change, first place. In 2026 Banning received the Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Art for Peace.
His work has been published in Newsweek, Time, The New Yorker, The Guardian and Le Monde Magazine.
