Lonca neighborhood: as told by the photographs

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The exhibition is has been dubbed a souvenir of the neighborhood, focusing on the 21st century Istanbul in both a global and local aspect. Company photos

Organized as part of Kadir Has University’s “Neighboring Rights Project,” “Life is not that you know it,” exhibits photographs taken by ten children from Lonca neighborhood. The photographs tell the story of the children living in these areas. The Rights of Neighbors project, which aims to foster a sustainable sense of community and development in the local area, has launched an exhibition that provides a look at the Golden Horn through the eyes of the children that live there.

“The photographs reveal the minor detail that the children see every day,” said Ulaş Tosun, a photography workshop instructor who provided photography tutorials to children aged 13 to 16 from the local neighborhood of Lonca. The photographs are documentaries of the neighborhood, depicting the story the vicinity’s local residents. The Lonca neighborhood is also one a notable center of Turkey and Istanbul gypsy culture.

The exhibition is has been dubbed a souvenir of the neighborhood, focusing on the 21st century Istanbul in both a global and local aspect. The concept of the neighbor of Istanbul is vanishing and the coming years forebode the extinction of intimate communities that once were present within a typical Istanbul neıghborhood. The environs of the university, Topkapı, Sulukule, Edirnekapı, Mevlanakapı, Yedikule, in fact the “surs” (or fortification, city walls) of Istanbul have been where Istanbul’s Gypsy and Roma have called home for years, and time will tell if these areas will remain as the only examples of their culture and traditions on the city.

It is a fact that Lonca neighborhood intrinsically forms part of the Istanbul’s world of culture, music, dance and handicrafts. With this project, the values of the neighborhood will be able to live on, according to Tosun.

The project’s objectives

The ultimate goal of the Kadir Has Neighborhood Rights Project is to capture the area specifically from the perspective of local children. The children were given two days of instruction and received free cameras at the end of the training. The earlier projects also included photographs taken by students from Cibali Primary School and Fener Rum High School. The Golden Horn neighborhoods of Cibali, Fener and Balat are essential to Istanbul’s cultural fabric and how it came to be “weaved” as so, Tosun said.

The children’s photographs were accompanied by short stories written by famous figures and artists, including Burcu Aktaş, Cüneyt Özdemir, Çoşkun Aral, Metin Üstündağ, Murat Uyurkulak, Nevin Sungur, Okan Bayülgen and Pınar Öğünç.

The students first took two months of theory workshops and then began working with semi-professional cameras.

The photographers who took part in this project were: Cesur Karakule, Demir Önemli, Emircan Duman, İdal Duman, İrem Önemli, Muhammed Gülfidan,Taha Doğan Bakır,Şara Yeşilova, Öykü Bulut, Yaren Aydın.