Güle Güle

Güle Güle (goodbye in Turkish) is a personal project shot in Istanbul in 2018. When the AKP party came to power in 2004, the city started experiencing a spiritual, political and material mutation. European lifestyle is increasingly unwelcome, population is divided, independent voices disappear from the media landscape, while pro-government promotion is insistent. A strong gentrification, the marginalization of the poorer classes, the increasing discrimination of homosexuality, the massive migratory influx of Syrian refugees and the stigmatization of the Kurdish community are the other crucial elements to consider. Multiple and conflicting situations collide creating a strong interference with a natural evolution and bring the sense of an unpredictable future. To document the profound changes taking place within the Turkish society, we got in close contact with above mentioned realities which are the actors of this change, often unaware pawns or distressed victims of a bigger, political scheme. Photographs are the result of our relationships with people and places, in the attempt to penetrate the complexity of the city’s contrasting microcosms and contradictory daily life.