Sirkhane Darkroom
Country: Turkey
Participants: Local and refugee children, Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish
‘I wanted to have a photo of my close friend while playing’.
© Gülşin, 8 / Sirkhane Darkroom
Sirkhane Darkroom is a mobile photography project that works with children in Mardin province, south-eastern Turkey. A few kilometres from the Syrian border, the area is a melting pot of people fleeing from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq as well as those who come from across the region. Since 2011 and the outbreak of war in Syria more than 90,000 Syrians have registered in Mardin, making up 10% of the population.
Initiated by the Syrian photographer Serbest Salih in 2017, who himself came to Mardin as a refugee, Sirkhane Darkroom equips local and refugee children with inexpensive pinhole and simple analogue cameras and teaches them them the basics of composition, how to develop and print their own photographs in the darkroom and how to organise exhibitions. Sirkhane Darkroom is aligned with the social circus school Her Yerde Sanat-Sirkhane, founded in 2012 to provide a safe, friendly and embracing environment for children affected by conflict.
When they started their photography workshops, they discovered that transportation was the biggest obstacle to children participating and concluded that they needed to make the project mobile. First, Salih converted a shipping container into a darkroom and this was moved every few months to a different location. Then, in 2019 Salih transformed a caravan into a darkroom which now travels from village to village along the Turkish-Syrian border, providing workshops for children aged between 7-17 years. The project, which has gained support from agencies such as UNHCR, brings together children from different backgrounds who have little or no access to cultural opportunities. The aim is to help Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish refugee children integrate with Turkish children and to create a space for those that have endured war and traumatic experiences and often have had to grow up too quickly, helping them heal and prolong their childhood.
“While taking pictures, I tried to capture human beings through the eyes of other living things.”
© Abdullah,13 / Sirkhane Darkroom
Participant from Sirkhane darkroom holding a handmade print
@ Sirkhane Darkroom
Sirkhane mobile darkroom caravan leaving after completing a workshop programme with children. @ Sirkhane Darkroom
The program runs over eight weeks and is customized to individual children’s circumstances with support of the children’s parents or guardians. Over this time the children are encouraged to play and experiment, to take photos of their surroundings, of their families and friends and to develop new ways of thinking through learning about photography and child rights. Salih encourages them creatively, saying there is no such thing as a bad photo – they just need to feel it. Seeing their pictures first appear in the darkroom is like magic for the children. The children do their own editing for their Instagram feed and also chose the edits for their 2021 book, ‘I Saw the Air Fly’. Their work has been exhibited in the UK and Turkey.
‘My friend’
© İshak 8 / Sirkhane Darkroom
‘The children create stories, play out scenes, and really explore their imaginations within
the space of the frame. I see how photography opens up a world of spontaneity, fun and magic’