This book showcases over 100 colour images that depict how the urban middle class in Turkey represented themselves through photography during the 1920s and 1930s. The six chapters explore the relationship between photography, gender, body, space, materiality, and language during the Turkish Republic’s nation-building, secularisation, and modernisation reforms. The archive used in the book reveals that personal cameras allowed for some deviation from the state’s ideal citizen-image by incorporating Ottoman and Turkic traditions, pushing gender boundaries, and introducing playfulness.
The talk can be attended both online and in person.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
