AFGHANISTAN 2001 was on view January 15 - February 24, 2002

Photojournalist Teun Voeten was born in the Netherlands in 1961. After a year as an exchange student in the United States, he traveled throughout Europe and then began his studies in cultural anthropology and philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. There he grew interested in photography and learned the profession by working as a photo assistant. He later studied in New York at the School of Visual Arts and earned his first magazine assignments covering the race riots in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and elections in Nicaragua. Publications in Holland, Belgium and the United States soon sought his photographs and writings on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Haiti and Rwanda.

Between 1996 and 1998, Voeten became interested in the so-called 'forgotten wars' of Colombia, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Sierra Leone. He documented these on-going crises in his photo book, A Ticket To..., published in 1999 by Veenman Publishers. Voeten has published in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, The World & I, High Times, Details, Village Voice, Vrij Nederland, NRC, De Standaard, Frankfuerter Algemeine, etc. His photographs are used worldwide by relief organizations including the International Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, UNICEF and the UNHCR. He has won several awards for his photography and has been a regular guest on talk shows from all major networks in the Netherlands and Belgium. Besides his journalistic work, Voeten started a foundation for a Sierra Leone high school. For more information on the photographer and to view more of his work, please go to http://www.teunvoeten.com.


Following the events of September 11th, photographer Teun Voeten went back to Afghanistan to document the fate of the country after the war on terrorism had hit its soil. It was a return trip for him as Voeten had spent extensive time all over the country on several occasions in 1996 and 1998. Last October, Voeten traveled across the territory of the Northern Alliance, in November and December, he documented life in the newly liberated cities of Jalalabad and Kabul. Voeten is not so much focusing on hard news: With his images, he tries to render a respectful portrait of a country and its citizens ravaged by an ongoing war.


Afghanistan 2001 by Teun Voeten was on display through February 24, 2002.