Björn Steinz is a documentary photographer and educator based in Prague, where he has lived and worked since 1994. 

Born in Oberursel im Taunus, Germany, he began photographing for a local newspaper as a teenager in the late 1980s - a practice that sparked a love for photography and became the driving force behind all that came after.

His path into serious documentary work was accelerated by direct experience: volunteering in refugee camps during the Yugoslav Wars and extensive travel through Latin America confronted him early with questions of displacement, memory, and survival. 

Guided by his mentor Branko Popovic — a Sarajevo photographer displaced by the war, whom he met in Frankfurt — he made his way to the Department of Photography at Prague's Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), where he completed his Master of Arts in 1999.

His work focuses on marginalised communities, historical memory, and the social transformations of Central and Eastern Europe. 

Over the years he has documented Roma communities across the continent, made multiple expeditions to the Russian region of Yakutia in deep winter, and spent two decades tracing the aftermath of the Bosnian War through the story of one refugee — a project called Finding Elvis. 

His most recent long-term series, Silent Landscapes (Stille Landschaften), explores the experience of the Sudeten Germans through his own family history and the landscapes of the former Sudetenland straddling today's Czech-German border.

Alongside his practice, he spent two years as Assistant Professor at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea, an experience that deepened his engagement with questions of cultural difference and visual literacy. 

He is currently teaching at the Anglo-American University in Prague, where he has taught Documentary Photography and Visual Culture since 2012.

His photographs have appeared in Die Zeit, Der Stern, Du, Geo Special, The Guardian, National Geographic, and publications of the Open Society Foundations, among others.

Interview for Radio Prague International (in German, 2023)

Björn is represented by Panos Pictures in London. 

Booking please via https://www.panos.co.uk/contact/ | Michael Regnier