Capturing joy and resilience in Istanbul through tumultuous times

One morning in June 2013, Turkish photographer Sıla Yalazan travelled to Taksim Square in the centre of Istanbul with a friend. They knew that the situation would be tense – since May 28, a wave of protests had broken out to fight the government’s plans to develop the neighbouring Gezi Park with a shopping mall, but as the demonstrations snowballed, they had turned into a moment of existentialism for Türkiye’s government and its relations with its people.

“It was a very intense moment,” she recalls. ​“I was just taking photos, and then a tank exploded. Then the police came and a sound bomb went off – it was just so scary. I didn’t know if I was going to see anything like that again soon, but those protests, were a moment of freedom in a way. Mums were cooking and bringing food, no cops were out, there was an exchange system with no money, a library and a ballet show, but then of course it became dark.”

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The protests would eventually be cracked down upon harshly by the Turkish authorities. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at protestors to disperse them, while thousands of arrests were made. But a picture that Yalazan took that day, of protestors holding hands as smoke rises in the background, now features in her series Flowers in Concrete.

Right now, widespread protests have broken out in Türkiye’s largest city, following the arrest of the Mayor of Istanbul, and rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ekrem Imamoglu. Clashes have occurred between protestors and police around the city and at the university, while at least 100 people have reportedly been arrested as the authorities have attempted to halt the demonstrations. Writing from Istanbul, Yalazan says it’s the ​“first big protests since Gezi Park – we are strong and determined”.

It makes the photographer’s series particularly pertinent, which combines protest photography from 2013 and LGBTQ+ parades in 2015, with pictures that she took of children in the Tarlabaşı neighbourhood as it underwent rapid gentrification. In doing so, she captured a city in flux as it weathered political turmoil and economic change.

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Yalazan first visited the Tarlabaşı area in the early ​’00s, when her mother opened a furniture shop in the district. The neighbourhood, situated in the centre of the city and a stone’s throw from Taksim Square, has traditionally been a densely populated, lower-income area and a home to migrant communities. Visiting often to see her mother, Yalazan soon found herself striking close friendships with local families.

“There’s many cultures there, there were a lot of Romanians and Kurdish people, then when the war started a lot of Syrians, and at the moment people from Nigeria and Congo,” Yalazan explains. ​“Kurdish people live together with Turkish people – I think it’s the one place that no one really argues. It’s a welcoming, free place, and they know suffering and resistance.”

But in recent years, the area has been a focus area for urban development plans, which has included projects that has seen direct state involvement, such as luxury Taksim 360 project. ​“Tarlabaşı is a gentrification area now,” Yalazan says. ​“They’re building a shopping centre, the building my studio is in is coming down – it’s changing and I don’t know what’s going to happen in four or five years.”

In photographing the children of the area, playing in the streets and joyously donning masks, the photographer captures a youthful vibrancy and resilience that defies the tough context around them. It’s that spirit that makes an easy line to draw for Yalazan with the protests from 2013 and now. ​“Those kids in Tarlabaşı, they’re streetwise,” she explains. ​“I do workshops and teaching with them, and I wanted to do something where it was just playful. I wanted to make something joyful – there’s enough drama and darkness in the world, but when you look at the photos there’s a lot of fun.

“At the moment, it’s bleak [in Istanbul], and the whole world is going in that direction,” she continues. ​“We are at a boiling point – everyone is wondering when the next Gezi Park will be?”

The time, it seems, is now.

To see Flowers in Concrete and more photography by Sıla Yalazan, visit her official website and follow her on Instagram.

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