kursadbayhan

roots /in progress

Following my “Away From Home” project, where I documented modern forms of migration, I have embarked upon a second project “Root-A point of origin” where I address the notions of origin and a sense of belonging and answer the questions: “Where am I from?” “What are my origins?"
Malatya: a place that is written on my identity card as my place of birth. In spite of that and having visited a few times it doesn't really express my origins. Apart from my father being from Malatya, we were also generally considered to be Eastern Anatolian or Kurdish. I spent my childhood in the conservative Mediterranean city of Isparta, and ended up in İstanbul where I completed my education. İstanbul is also the city where I earn a living and to which I feel connected, and all of these elements together make me ask myself: from where I do feel I am from?
When my father was 17, his mother passed away he traveled through Diyarbakır, Adıyaman İstanbul and Isparta. Years later, while on jobs in those same cities, I took photos relating to identity and a sense of belonging in order to form the parts of a fictional story. If the first photographs don't represent a step-by-step visual account of the places my father has lived, they take important steps in anaswering questions of cultural identity and where I am from.