About me:

Bénédicte Kurzen is a 27 year old French photographer currently living in South Africa. At the age of 23, she left Paris for Israel/Palestine. She has been a photographer since then, covering the news in the Middle East from Jerusalem to Charm El Sheick and from Beirut to Baghdad, until recently. Freelance but represented by World Picture News, her work has been seen in Paris Match, Newsweek, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Times of London, and Courrier International. In 2004, she took part in a common project with 8 other photographers on the global theme of “Violence against Women.” She worked in Gaza and explored the lives of Palestinian widows. The project was screened at the 2005 Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan. In 2005 she created with 5 other female photographers, a group called EVE. This group promotes a global approach to universal issues. Their first project, “Motherhood,” was screened in the Perpignan photojournalism Festival 2006, in the Angkor photo festival 2006, and the Lianzhou photo festival 2006. To broaden her understanding of the places she visits, she has learned to speak English, German, Spanish, some Arabic and Hebrew, and now Zulu.