Güle Güle

Güle Güle (goodbye in Turkish) is a photographic project focused on the city of Istanbul, a personal account about the profound changes happening in the city and within the Turkish society. It's the third chapter of our series about the cities in transition, following Naples and Rome.

We’re interested in places where deep political and social mutations create multiple parted microcosms. The exploration of these monadic realities represents the core around which our work develops. Cities combine the seduction of the “lieu”, expressed in open landscapes, secluded or domestic views and the power of humanity in a constant interaction. Photographs are the result of our multiple relationships with people and places, in order to penetrate the complexity of the city. We gradually got involved in different situations each characterized by unique and fascinating humanity and environment with peculiar visual traits.

When exposed to rapid mutations, communities reveal much of their intimate characters: frailties, passions and desires, hopes and fears. Gentrification and the critical situation of the poorer classes, the increasing discrimination of homosexuality, the massive migratory influx of Syrian refugees and the Kurdish community issue are just some of the realities behind the subjects portrayed in the work. Documenting marginalized communities is a revealing process, which allows to get in contact with the social substrate representing the actual human expression of each city, laying just beneath a more superficial and widely accepted social facade.

While still following a documentary approach, we however decided to leave on the background the informative and didactic content of the images to foster the immediacy of the pictures and an open ended narrative. The editing and sequencing of the photographs represents an important key of the work. Pictures taken in very different environments, connect each other to give access to scenarios otherwise unimaginable. Diptychs and the interaction of the photographs shed a new and unexpected light over the story, revealing its complexity and hidden layers. The approach in its entirety is an effective way to raise questions, while triggering the viewer inner panorama of experiences.

Güle Güle - the submitted work - won the 2019 Sony WPO Award in the “Discovery” category and was exhibited in London at the Somerset House. It was part of the main exhibition of the Warsaw Photo Days Festival and finalist at Voies Off screening nights. In February 2020 it will be featured at the Biennale Für Aktuelle Fotografie in Mannheim curated by David Campany and it’ll be part of the permanent collection of Fondazione Orestiadi in Gibellina (Sicily). The dummy book received multiple recognitions, among these it was Shortlisted at LUMA Rencontres in Arles, shortlisted at Photoboox Awards and received the special Mention at the Kassel Photobook Award. Güle Güle in March will become a book for André Frère Éditions.