Mary Ellen Mark is recognized world-wide for photographs where the viewer confronts reality face to face, and she has photographed homeless young people in Seattle, the charity work of the Sisters of Mother Teresa in Kolkata, and brothels in Mumbai to name a few examples.
When she visited Iceland in 2006 she was very fascinated by the work that was done with respect to disabled children in Iceland.
Following this the National Museum of Iceland asked for cooperation with Mary Ellen Mark for the purpose of photographing the life of disabled children in Iceland. The project received a grant form the Glitnir Cultural Fund. The outcome was the exhibition Undrabörn – Extraordinary children and a catalogue with the same title. Both the exhibition and the book feature artworks by the extraordinary children themselves.
In addition to Mary Ellen's photographs, Ívar Brynjólfsson's photographs adorn the book, Einar Falur Ingólfsson wrote the introduction and the foreword is by Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir, the director of the National Museum of Iceland.
