2003 Infinity Award: Young Photographer

Jonas Bendiksen was born in Norway in 1977. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1997 to study photojournalism, and in 2000 became affiliated with Magnum Photos. He currently lives in New York City, but works primarily in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia. At the age of 25, Bendiksen has already amassed an impressive portfolio culled from numerous international photographic projects, each of which has suggested a fully realized social consciousness and an appreciation for visual intricacies. His portfolio “Changing the Face of India” received the 2002 Ian Parry Memorial Award, and he has had photographs published in The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Le Monde 2, and TANK. His work has also been exhibited at the Tom Blau Gallery in London and the Fotografie Museum in Amsterdam.

Much of Bendikson’s work in the territories of the former Soviet Union explores religion, ethnic conflict, and terrorism—and questions the definition of each. His images in this series record the struggles of people whose beliefs and interests do not easily fit with those of the government, neighboring ethnic communities, and religious organizations. Bendikson also followed Dr. Sharad Kumar Dicksheet, a plastic surgeon who provides as many as 70 free plastic surgery procedures every day to people with physical deformities in India, even as his own health deteriorates.