Photographer Ilkka Uimonen (b. Finland, 1966) sees the conflicts in the Middle East as a part of an endless cycle of violence. This began three millennia ago and entered a new phase in 2000 with the start of the second Intifada. In the two years that Uimonen devoted to recording it, the conflict claimed 600 Israeli and 1600 Palestinian lives. The Finn sees his photographs as the record of a cycle of violence and cites the philosophy of Carl Jung, who proposed that conflicts will never be resolved so long as emotions have displaced reason.

Ilkka Uimonen has done photo reportages in recent years in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Kosovo. He lives in New York and works as a freelance photojournalist for a series of American and European publications, and is a contract photogapher for Newsweek. Since 2002 he has been a member of the famous Magnum photo agency.

Courtesy Magnum Photos (France)