John Vink

John Vink was born in Belgium in 1948. He studied photography at the fine arts school of La Cambre in 1968 and is a free lance journalist since 1971. He joined Agence Vu in Paris in 1986 and won the Eugene Smith Award for his work on Water in Sahel that same year. Between 1987 and 1993 he completes a major work on refugees in the world. A book called ‘Réfugiés’ will be published in 1994. He becomes a full member of Magnum Photos in 1997. In 1993 he starts working on ‘Peuples d’en haut’, published in 2004, a series of chronicles of communitites with a strong cultural identity living in mountaineous areas. He is based in Cambodia since 2000, a country he visits since 1989. 'Avoir 20 Ans à Phnom Penh' is published in 2000. Besides documenting the social/political situation and the Khmer Rouge tribunal, he works on a major essay on land issues in Cambodia.