Turkish Delight

While I was working in the neighbourhood of Tarlabaşı this series came along. This part of the city is said to be a criminal place - a no-go area. For me, this place was simply very loud, poor, chaotic and full of garbage. I was overwhelmed by this narrow place, too much almost. Then I started to be part of it. I waved over from my balcony to the neighbours in front of me and, after a while, was sitting in their living room and having a tea with them: communicating with gestures, via my camera or the miserable Google translator. I went almost every day to have food at the same place, next to it having a tea and some other days having a Turkish coffee around the corner – Do you take sugar? Yes, one please. It tasted better with sugar and with sweets like baklava beside it. I expanded my own neighbourhood step-by-step and I started to focus on the strong colors everywhere and its body parts that scurried past my eyes. These images mirror the "narrow eyes” I had in this small part of Istanbul. It was hot, dirty and very sweet.