ESRA KLEIN | PHOTOGRAPHY

STORY

WOMEN OF SAND

NEWROZ

ACASA

In spring 2016 my father and I travelled to the village in Romania where he was born. He had not been there for 40 years, it was the first time for me. I documented this journey with some questions in mind: What is home, does something remain in the place where you grew up once? Is there someone left or something, that reminds you? How does it change? How did you change?

The result can be seen in a book.

NEWROZ

Every year in early spring the kurdish population of south east Turkey gathers for the originally Iranian New Years festival Newroz, that is celebrated as a kurdish festival here, around the city of Diyarbakir. Waving flags of Abdullah Öcalan, the captivated head of the forbidden kurdish labour party and terroristic group PKK, they declare this part of turkey as Kurdistan.

WOMEN OF SAND

In a small village of fishermen on the island Santiago of the Cape Verdian Islands, there is a community that digs its own grave. For the booming construction industry of the republic, they extract the sand from their beaches since the sixties. With no other options left to finance their families, the women see themselves in a dilemma, that will only end, when there is absolutely no sand left or the industry doesn't accept their material any more. The latter is quite improbable, although there is already a prohibition of sand extraction on the islands since 2002. But the republic cannot afford expensive sand imports. // There is a booklet available with portraits of the women.

This is an ongoing project. The problem of sand extraction is a global one.