The world is a bumpy road with thousands of layers, it's not something that we can just smooth out in black or white, good or bad, yes or no. This is something my photography has helped me to accept.

When I was 13 years old, I wrote my own 'novel' about WWII. The main character was Arnold, a boy my age. I ended the story with heart cries like: 'Why do people never learn!!' and 'We are all the same people!!!' More frustrations followed during my early twenties. I read tons of books on politics and war and sifted through newspapers to find out what the answers, solutions and above all, the truth were. Half of the time I was angry about the TV-news and even towards the newsreader, and later while discussing world politics I tried to dominate the conversation with a vast array of Google-facts.

After years of discussions, I was fortunate to get assignments that gave me the opportunity to travel a lot, and I was convinced that this would be the right way to find the answers and the one and only truth. But even on my first trip to Sarajevo, the first struggles quickly surfaced. It turned out that there were thousands of truths and perspectives, and when people noticed my judgments about their way of life, culture, conflict, religion or their country, I could no longer photograph them. Slowly - after many trips and many conversations - I learned that my opinions about everything and everyone were not as interesting as I had once thought. What I really needed as a photographer were just good ears to listen and a sincere and genuine curiosity.

Slowly, a different point of view began to develop and so many personal stories have been shared since then. From the CEO of a global company, the baker living in a war zone, or my own neighbor. All that people needed was the opportunity, the confidence and the time to speak. At first glance, their personal stories did not seem to matter much on the grand stage of world politics, but to me they became increasingly important. It was in the details; they showed me their humanity, colored by history or family, seeking attention, afraid of being left out, struggling with an ego, to name a few. And that is from where we run our world.

Besides all the conversations, I learned so much from photographer Tim Hetherington's documentary "Which way is the frontline from here”? In deep ways, I recognized his lifelong search for the ‘why’ behind brutal wars and conflicts. But the difference between him and me was that it seemed his search had not left him cynical or frustrated, something I myself did struggle with. Instead of getting frustrated, he used his energy to accept that human beings have also had inky black sides in them for as long as humanity has existed. It gave him space to step beyond his personal judgments, and in doing so, share a nuanced and profound view of difficult topics like war. He inspired me greatly (I wrote this piece after seeing the docu). One example is his "sleeping soldiers" project.

I, too, enjoy sharing these stories. At a time when people are constantly receiving news reports on their devices, it is almost fascinating to hear the extreme judgments people have about people they have never met and regions they have never been to. Sometimes it scares me. We are all dealing with a constant focus on exceptional news that makes people feel unsafe, angry and extreme even when nothing actually changes in their own personal situation or environment.

By adding personal projects to the everyday news, I try to create situations where people have a chance to recognize each other. As a mother, family, son, colleague. Or as a friend. Showing nuance feels like a lifelong search for an antidote to extremism, aggression or simplicity, and I sincerely hope that my projects prevent us from thinking like adversaries. I think that's why, as a 13-year-old girl, I wrote in my novel, "we are together, we are the same people.

Examples are projects which include Baghdad Today (2012), A Monday in Kabul (2013), Das Paradies (2014), Outside Syria (2015), The Island of All Together (2015), Letters to Joep (2016), Nederland O Nederland (2017), The Cover (2021) and our new project Children of the Labyrinth (2022-2023). 

These projects were all partially funded by my own commercial assignments and some crowdfunding. All of them are published in leading global media.  

I was honored to explain my motivation during a 18-minute TEDx-talk in Maastricht, the Netherlands: