Simultaneously with the exhibition 'My dearest Teun' by Tahné Kleijn, photos by Jan Banning from his famous series 'Traces of War' will be shown. For the book 'Traces of War. Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways' (2005, Dutch edition 2003), Jan Banning portrayed and interviewed men who worked as forced laborers on the construction of the Burma and Sumatra Railways during the Japanese occupation in World War II. He portrayed them with bare chests, just as they had worked as forced laborers at that time. At Pennings, several portraits of survivors of the Sumatra Railway, including Jan Banning's father, will be shown.

Jan Banning

Jan Banning (Almelo 1954) has Dutch East Indies parents. He studied social and economic history at Radboud University Nijmegen. Both facts have had a strong influence on his photographic works.

His roots can be found in several of his subjects, such as in 'Comfort Women', about Indonesian women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army during World War II, and in 'Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways', about former forced laborers in Southeast Asia during the same period.

Power, justice, and (in)equality are central to Banning's work. His projects often have a personal starting point but are never 'private': he places the subjects that arise from his private life in a larger social context.

In September 2025, photographer Jan Banning will give a lecture on his series 'Comfort Women' and 'Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Pakanbaroe Railways'.