Fotograf Magazine

The Book of Veles has not only become a phenomenon in the world of photobooks, which it took by storm – it has even broken into the mainstream, thus contributing to the debate about the current nature of photography. This project, taking place in the provincial town of Veles in North Macedonia, is, of course, “fake”. Jonas Bendiksen avoids boring us with his challenge to the “truth contained in photography” as many artists have done before him – instead, he transplants manipulation onto a new level. As a photographer for the Magnum agency, Bendiksen pledged to protect the purity of the medium and the relation between the image or the narrative depicted and reality. But how is a photographer to depict a world based on fake news? How can one trustworthily report on the forms of manipulation and misinformation about the state of the world?