Tanya is not Just my Mother

Tanya is not a subject but a space—where memory, intimacy, and displacement converge in a visual dialogue beyond family or biography.

“Tanya is not Just my Mother” is a personal and deconstructive photobook project that explores the profound visual connection between the photographer and the photographed. While centered around Tanya, the project simultaneously unfolds the photographer's own emotional narrative—revealing a layered portrait of intimacy, memory, and identity. Inspired by Roland Barthes' reflection, “I look at my mother’s youthful photographs and search for myself in her flowered dress,” the work acts as a form of self-portraiture. Yet it transcends the conventional limits of self-representation by navigating through cultural dissonance and oscillating between the concepts of self, ego, and the other. My relationship with Tanya unfolds with subtle humor and poetic tension—moving across time, from past to present and beyond. The emotional landscape portrayed in the images captures the complexities of affection, distance, and transformation. Tanya's cultural experience in Turkey echoes a personal diaspora—an ongoing negotiation between belonging and estrangement. The photobook takes the shape of a passport—an intentional choice to mirror themes of identity, movement, and displacement. Instead of bureaucratic stamps, each photograph serves as a timestamp—an emotional imprint rather than an official one. The result is a deeply intimate, multidimensional portrayal of personhood: a poetic document that suggests home may exist not in a place, but within the fragile space between two people. (youtube link was not watchable please try from adobe portfolio link:

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