"You are lucky... you can never meet my mother, my father, our neighbour"

You Could Even Die For Not Being a Real Couple by Laura Lafon (available here)  is a love story of sorts, an unhappy love story, where love, friendship and simply being are restricted through psychological, social and physical means. It’s about the culture of violence and control that is imposed on those who seek a life outside the very limited prescriptions of distorted famial, religious and cultural norms.

It’s a book about misogyny. And then some.

And it takes place in eastern Turkey, among the people where Lafon has gone to visit with her boyfriend Martin Gallone. They visit, they talk to locals, they photograph and they fall in love. Against a backdrop of young local people who don’t quite have that freedom.

The book starts with its cover, red velveteen with a gold carpet-like design on it. It is very nice to touch. Then you open the book and there’s a car, then a  couple by the car. Shot at night, the car parked on a dusty layby, there’s an anxiety to the couple, as though their love is forbidden, their meeting secret in some way.

The next pictures shows Lafon and Gallone lying naked by some strange grotto in the darkness of the night, the idea of why they are lying there indicated by the texts that are interspersed with the images.

“We can’t think like European people…. If my girlfriend cheats me, if she is my wife, I have to kill her, according to our traditions. I can force her family to kill her. If my sister comes home as pregnant or raped, I am sure my father wants to kill her because she dishonoured our family. It’s her fault, it’s her choice, it’s stupid to get pregnant buy I wold do my best to stop him to kill her. In his opinion I am stupid, but who is that people placing woman so important that they deserve to die if she is raped?”

Unpick that if you will. There is the idea (expressed by misogynists, brutalists and people who take money from questionable sources on both the left and right) that questioning violence and murder against women, against homosexuals, against minorities, is an example of cultural imperialism and part of the othering of the non-western world. I would beg to differ. I've yet to meet anybody from non-western countries who have encountered violence or limitations to freedom that is sanctioned by religion, by family, by cultural norms, by the state - to have that view. And the idea that a respect for human rights is something limited to western countries is both absurd and reveals a profound ignorance and venality.

Anyway, back to Lafon. More pictures show the landscapes, the generations, the city. We see a café at night, patronised only by men. We see men standing, posing, looking, wanting. We see young women doing the same, but more vulnerable, with the air of violence above and behind them. Boys are boys, and girls are girls and only the pictures of darkened gardens and shadowy streets show where they might meet. In the meantime, Gallone goes down on Lafon, and we see them both posing naked in a hotel room.

Marriage, religion and guns appear and there is a general air of male-dominated stupidity in the air. It’s not one thing, it’s the totality of it all, a totality that justifies oppression (including killing) in the name of tradition - and if you ever want to know what’s wrong with tradition then this song from Fiddler on the Roof  gives you a pretty good answer.

The book is about something that really matters. In places it is not as clear as it could be. You have to know the story before you begin (it has the sentences that explains it at the back), but at the same time it is about a subject that is concrete and really matters, both over there and over here.

Of course, it’s coming from a privileged place, but Lafon recognises this. One of the quotes she includes reads:

“Life is really cheap. You are lucky because you can only meet educated people, open minded who speak English, but you can never meet my mother, my father, our neighbour. This can mislead you.”

At its heart though, it’s a book about fundamental human rights; the right to free association, the right to love who you want, the right not to be killed for falling in love, the right not to have labels of honour and dishonour used to justify torture, killing and forced marriage.

And that’s a really good thing. The United Nations was founded 71 years ago to this day to fight for those principles.. The Declaration of Universal Human Rights followed three years later. You can see them here. See them and tick off the ones that the country you live in violates. I live in the UK. We violate plenty both domestically and overseas. The Declaration is for us as well. 

Lafon, in her small photobook way, is doing the same thing. And that is to be praised and admired. Photography, along with many other things, can still make a difference. And if it doesn't make a difference, it can at least have a voice. About something that really matters.

Buy the book here.

Nothing Surprising: The death of Istanbul

Nothing Surprising by Ali Taptik is a book about Istanbul, about what lies on the surface, what lies beneath the surface. It's a book showing disparate images of the city underscored with an edge of trauma and violence. The pictures appear on the outside of the French folds. On the inside are pictures of newspaper pages  from Taptik's childhood, a period that mirrors the current period for state violence.



The context for the book comes from a small text enclosed within its pages. 'Some time around October 2008, when the financial Crisis exploded, all my friends who happened to have studied architecture like I did , lost their jobs. As the prime minister talked about how these economic events 'tangented' the country, we, young people who were growing up together, suddenly realized our precarity. There was a constant air of crisis in the air. My initial reacation to all this was to portray my friend's idle states in their apartments. Meanwhile demolitions started in certain parts of the city, which would soon take over the more central and visible neighborhoods. As I wriete these words, another coming age of the rebuilding of Istanbul has begun, for the n-th time.'

So that's what it's about; the death of one city (again), the rebirth of another in the midst of political violence, repression, protest and personal conflict.  At the same time freedom of expression is being strangled and those, like Taptik, who have a political conscience and a voice, are left strugglng to find a way to express protest that is being smothered by fear.



It's nothing new of course and that's where the newspaper inserts (which you can't really see) come in. They show
the events of 1993 when a series of assassinations and deaths of  politicians, journalists, and generals transformed the ongoing negotiations between the government and the Kurds.

Taptik says his architectural study ties in to crisis and resistance in a local urban context and that this book and his previous volume "Kaza ve Kader"  , he wants to create a more subtle evocative narrative that is personal and political.  

So that's the grounding of the book and it's a strong grounding that tells you where the pictures come from and what they mean. In some ways the books need it because the pictures are not that specific. Instead they tell of a general malaise in Istanbul, a malaise that is rooted in the 2008 economic crisis that led to Taptik's friends in architecture (Taptik is doing a PHD in architecture) losing their jobs. But this malaise also connects to the events of 2013, the re-eruption of war in Turkey's Kurdish regions, and the general air of crisis in the air, crisis that has not just happened but has been made to happen.

The pictures start with a mass of people under a giant flag, a Turkish flag, the people beneath bathed in red. Soot-stained apartments, a hirsute and hefty middle-aged man in a string vest wired for medical monitoring, and a child running from a miniature bonfire establish key themes; construction, destruction, uprooting, unravelling, chaos emerging out of control, development creating protest and the tools of protest.

There are personal elements in there too, a woman taking her top off, another (or the same) lying naked on the floor, all part of the mix that makes up the changing Turkey. And more pointed political markers too; a wall with MLKP/GKO (the initiials of Turkey's Marxist-Leninist Communist Party) scrawled across it, a mosque, riot police adn children washing in a murky looking river. The book ends with a man unconscious on the ground followed by another image of red. The future is not bright in Turkey.




Nothing Surprising is an ambitious book that is more direct than most in its use of images to paint a picture of a particular mood. The ideas are quite direct and the sense of construction and destruction through development, the use of concrete and steel as underpinners of political violence come through in pictures that are stark and uncompromising.





The newspaper French folds don't work as well as intended - maybe because I can't read Turkish, or maybe because the design doesn't suit the content - but the short text that accompanies the book helps pin the book down and stop it being vague. So instead of being a book that is about nothing in particular, a book that could be about any city, Nothing Surprising becomes something much more powerful, a book about a great city going through what might well be cataclysmic change. There's a directness in there in other words, and it's very powerful, a directness I hope Taptik continues to develop with his continuiing work.

Buy the book here.

Fault Lines Turkey

For our final visit to Turkey, another mention for George Georgiou's excellent Fault Lines, now available as a book. I like the way that Georgiou tries to unravel the idealised Turk to reveal the ethnic mix that makes up the supposedly monocultural, secular (but 99% Islam, which is being a bit uninclusive to the atheists of Turkey) nation which was once something quite different. How it moved from that different place to what it is today, Georgiou answers through the places he photographs and the strategies he chooses along the way.

Chantal Zakari and Ataturk

Leaving behind the Turkish Meditteranean holiday snaps, but continuing on the Turkey theme, PhotoEye has an interesting inteview with Mike Mandel and Chantal Zakari who have self-published The State of Ata, a "fascinating new self-published book from Mike Mandel and Chantal Zakari exploring modern Turkey by following the pervasive imagery of the revolutionary leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In this 250+ page book, Mandel and Zakari weave interviews, found images, documentary-style photographs, comics, and more to tell a complicated story about a diverse country still in transition."

Anyway, it's the latest in a new line in books examining the visual and political iconography of a national leader. The most interesting thing is the piece of theatre that developed when Zakari held up a picture of Ataturk during a demonstration and the subsequent fallout from that.

I am not sure what Ataturk really means in Turkey, or the convoluted significances he has that combine from  the past and present - but I am guessing that if anyone ever attempted to unravel the reality from the mythology, they would not be getting a warm welcome in Turkey anytime soon. This is from the interview and is an example of contested meanings at every stage.





PE:    This project got a lot of media attention inside of Turkey because of one action by Zakari and the media's reaction to it. Will you describe this event and tell how this affected the documentary project and book?

MM:    It's a rather amazing story, and certainly the significance of this whole spectacle needs to be recognized for what it was: an opportunity for the secular press to exploit the image of Chantal for their own anti-Islamist agenda. We were carrying framed pictures of Atatürk to put up in the hotel rooms where we staying along our trip, but that's another story: it was part of a performance that questioned the sanctity of the Atatürk icon, we certainly weren't putting up pictures of Atatürk in homage. Be that as it may, we did have these framed post cards, and while we were in Ankara on a Sunday morning we witnessed a street demonstration of Islamists who were protesting the government's new law for increased secular education. We quickly decided to make a picture of Chantal holding up one of the framed post cards of Atatürk. I found a concrete base of a light pole to climb up and get a better angle. Some of the Islamists reacted to Chantal with gestures and shouts. But there was no altercation, there were even some protesters who said that they, too, supported Atatürk. Chantal's gesture was, indeed, a statement in support of secularism. I made six pictures and in a few minutes it was over. Then we were gone. Little did we know that standing next to me on my light pole perch was a Reuters videographer that was keyed into Chantal's every move.

But that was in the morning. The march lasted until the afternoon, and there were converging throngs of protesters who coalesced and started roughing up the secular reporters. The police, who have a reputation for backing the Islamists, didn't stop the violence. So hours after our little photo event, all hell broke loose, the protest became violent, people were hurt. We were nowhere near this madness, as we had packed up and were on our way out of Ankara by then. But when the Reuters imagery of the lone, Western-looking young woman, holding up her picture of Atatürk to the angry marching Islamists was released, it was the perfect symbol for the media to run with. Chantal was proclaimed "The Courageous Girl," "The Girl of the Republic," "Brave Heart." The video was played endlessly on every TV station, all the newspapers were running with the story. When the reporters caught up with us in the little town of Goreme, all of a sudden there were dozens of reporters and photographers descending on us for more of the story of this brave Atatürk supporter. We ended up holding a press conference to try to clarify what we were doing and why. Yes, it was an image of secular support, but Chantal believed that everyone had a democratic right to speak, to protest, just not to become violent. The press edited it their own way to satisfy their agenda.

Turkish Holiday pastimes

 

Contrast and compare the absence of persona whilst reading or playing chess with the absence of persona whilst watching TV.

Turkish Turtles

The people up top are watching newly hatched turtles struggling to the sea- there was a woman who got so close and took so many pictures of the poor little thing, it's a wonder any of them survived.

Turkish Bus

This Turkish bus served ice cream upon departure, tea and cake every couple of hours and had Bugs Bunny playing on a loop on the back of the seat TV screens. Our best bus ride ever.

Turkish Water

 

 

Isabel's Turkish Haircut

George Georgiou

I interviewed George Georgiou for the BJP last month. Below is the text and you can see the images in a pdf George made of the piece here

‘Happy is he who calls himself a Turk’

“When you first arrive in a place, you are so informed by images you have already seen that it is a burden you have to lose,” says George Georgiou, the London-based photographer who has recently returned from 8 years working in Turkey, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. “The next thing you do is look for difference, which is something else you need time to get over. Once you have done that, you start to look at what is familiar and then, and only, then can you appreciate what is different - because only then can you appreciate that it is really different.”

The differences of Turkey became apparent to Georgiou from the start of his four year residency in the country. Whilst working on a feature on where Europe ends and Asia begins. Georgiou quickly discovered the diversity of a country where the secular and religious, the military and the civil, the traditional and the modern coexist in an uneasy harmony. “To start to understand a place, you need to stay a long time,” says Georgiou. “So I started working on this idea of Turkey being the meeting point of east and west.”

The result of that work is Fault Lines, a book (to be published later in the year) that reveals the complexities of a country that is struggling to reconcile its multiple personalities. Taking centre stage in that work is the Turkish landscape. “We are used to seeing Istanbul or the Mediterranean resorts,” says Georgiou, “but most of Turkey is on a huge plateau above 1,000 m. I wanted to get this non-romantic version of Turkey where the landscape represents the harshness of its geography and its topographical place in the east.”

Continue reading here.

George Georgiou and Snow

Snow by Orhan Pamuk is a book many people, especially Turkish people, don't get on with. It's honest, direct and complex. It's also a tad prickly, in keeping with Pamuk's character.

But I love it. It's not exotic and it's not soft. I love the harshness of the city of Kars, the pragmatism by which people exist and the intricate weaving of allegiances and emnities between the religious, the secular, the devout and corrupt. The human relationships it depicts extend way beyond Turkey and tell us so much about how the world works, how politics works and how physical and social pressures can distort behaviour and a country.

Snow is also a tremendously visual book. It shows eastern Turkey in both an emotional and a physical sense.

The photography of George Georgiou works in the same way. It goes beyond the striking quality of the imagery and has a depth that reveals something about Turkey and Georgiou's knowledge of the country - a knowledge that one has a depth to it. I met Georgiou last year at Witzenhausen's Aperture Party in Amsterdam and he was a lovely man. Now he's living in England and his images have popped up on Verve, and he's also up in the Blurb Photobook Competetion (thanks to Jackanory for that news) where his book, "Happy is he who calls himself a Turk" is up on show.

He also has a book called Fault Lines East and West set for publication later in the year, which promises to be a tremendous book. In the meantime, good luck to him in the Blurb competition (and Amy Elkins whose Beyond This Place: 269 Intervals looks great).