Threshold Of Bliss

Esenyurt, Istanbul, Turkey, 2023–2026

Three years ago, I returned to Istanbul to pick up where I left off with a photographic project carried out between 2009 and 2013. Over the past 10 years, the city has continued its dizzying growth and its outskirts have been transformed. Where the city expands, some areas concentrate with raw intensity the tensions running through contemporary Turkey.

This is the case in Esenyurt, on the western edge of the European shore. With over one and a half million inhabitants, this district is a temporary settlement – somewhere between a holding area and a dead end – for people from diverse backgrounds. Kurds, Syrians, Afghans, Iranians, Uzbeks, as well as many African migrants, come together here, working in the informal economy and living in precarious housing, often whilst waiting for a better future to take shape elsewhere.

To experience it for myself, I explore this area on foot. I have allowed myself to get lost here. I keep going back to the same places time and time again to taste their pulse. I am feeling the harshness of the area, their almost unreal quality. As a result, I have chosen to present this series as a kind of fable, caught between a present we are forced to endure and a figured future.

Encounters sometimes give rise to portraits created in dialogue with the people photographed. It is first and foremost about bodies and faces, and the way in which these resonate with the surroundings. What place can one find in this oppressive urban space? What gestures and postures are imposed? What expressions can capture the daily experience in this stifling environment? Places and fragments accompany these portraits, forming a mental map of the territory rather than a representation of real spaces. The place of nature, often reconstructed or mistreated, is also central to my approach. Trees, plants and all forms of life are under strain. These two series combine and also give centre stage to the imagination. To allow everyone the opportunity to construct their own personal vision of this territory, which is both fantasised and stigmatised.

This project is being carried out in collaboration with:

Jean-François Pérouse
Geographer – University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès
Associate Researcher and former Director at IFEA (2012–2017)
Founder of the Istanbul Urban Observatory (OUI)

Yoann Morvan
Anthropologist (CNRS)
Mésopolhis (Sciences Po, Aix-Marseille University)