Instant still images (40 pieces)
85.6 × 53.98 mm,
Made in Hasankeyf, Turkey.
Instant photography provides a conceptual visualization process for a site that is submerged because of dam project. In May 2019, the district of Hasankeyf, a 12.000-year-old historical site in the Tigris basin, was forcibly evacuated due to the Ilisu dam project. Just a couple of weeks before its evacuation the site is photographed by walking around (about 200 meter diameter) and taking pictures with an instant camera. During this walking process, it was captured the ancient canyons, the numerous caves, the remains of the historical bridge, a street dog, and endemic plants.
The photographs emphasize the variation of the place and the flow of the Tigris just before the river was monsterised. The intention behind this visualization was not only to document the place before the catastrophe but also to experience the appearing process of things, contrary to the submerging manner of place. It is the tension between the absence and presence, between appearing and disappearing.
Work was produced with the support of FWF PEEK: “DisPossession: Post-ParticipatoryAesthetics and the Pedagogies of Land.” All images in this chapter: reproduced courtesy of Rojda Tugrul, the artist.
