WOMAN-BEING
Yet our story on this earth began the same way.
We dreamed under the same blue, rested in the shade of the same green, and warmed our hands by the same red glow.
We surrendered to the night with the same fears and awoke to the morning with the same courage.
What we needed was also the same: love, understanding, and acceptance.
We were companions on the sea of shared emotions that make us human.
When, and where, did we drift apart?
When did we forget our sameness—our kinship?
And when did we begin to fear our differences?
When were our souls shackled, and we women sent into exile?
How long have we been living with these invisible chains?
I don’t know how to measure the centuries-old pain of our wounded spirits.
But I know one thing: we can no longer live bound by these chains.
This exhibition is a journey into the forgotten memory of womanhood—
A voice seeping through the cracks of social roles, definitions, and expectations.
It is an invitation to remember what was made us forget,
To give voice again to what was silenced,
To ask once more: Who are we?
The time has come—to break the chains.
The time has come—to return to the essence of woman, to her own story.
The time has come—to remember together, to rewrite together.
“Woman-Being” is a call for liberation echoing in the collective memory of women.
A quiet yet powerful language of confrontation, remembrance, and rebirth.
Woman-Being Vol. 1 Exhibition - 15th Bursa International Photography Festival, FotoFest 2025
Mysterious
Jülide is a young Turkish woman who lost her father a few years ago. She grew up in a traditional family, adapting to life by making the choices expected of her – intelligent, capable, yet someone who carries storms within her inner world. I met her during a time when she was trying to rediscover the emotions and passions she had suppressed after her father’s death. I became part of her journey of self-discovery; together, we took to the roads of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Sometimes speaking, sometimes gazing in silence at the same misty mountains, we told each other our own similar stories.
Tenacious
Amy is an American in love with Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and is a marathon runner, an aspiring photographer, and a dreamer. She was my classmate at the École de Photographie in Paris. Her biggest dream was to live in a home where she could watch the Eiffel Tower day and night. But soon the view from that dream became a giant construction scaffold. She spent her first two years in Paris in a difficult legal battle with her landlord and the realtor. But she never stopped running, never stopped taking photographs, never stopped dreaming. And now she lives happily in a home where she can truly see the Eiffel Tower.
Unconventional
When Sinem spoke, I had nothing left to say.
“A woman’s story has never been written by herself alone. The woman within us is shaped by the stories of other women: our mother, our grandmother, our aunt, perhaps even Ayşe Teyze, the neighbour next door. Because women have always sought harmony—harmony with nature, with cycles. But when we set out on the journey to find the woman within us, we became lonely, we became outsiders. That is when the opposition began. Yet this was never the goal. Still, we were forced to struggle. In truth, all we ever wanted was to belong in harmony. And isn’t that the greatest contradiction of all? I chose not to be a mother, a wife, a daughter-in-law, or a daughter. Not to be rebellious, but to learn what it means to be a woman on my own terms. I surrendered myself to green grass, to my primal self, to nature, on my journey back into womanhood.”
Warrior
Laura is a warrior—an academic, a mother based in Paris. We first met years ago when we were both living in London. Time passed, and during a coffee meet-up in Paris, I was introduced to her son, whose very existence I had been unaware of. Later, over the two months I spent at their home, I witnessed the story of how she rediscovered her strength and awakened the warrior within, in the face of the difficult journey that began when she was left alone while pregnant.
Determined
Ebru is a Turkish woman who has been battling rheumatoid arthritis for years. Her condition forced her to put her life and dreams on hold; she spent two and a half years bedridden. Straying from modern medical treatments, she listened to the voice of her heart, researched, and applied her own methods of healthy nutrition. She got back on her feet at a pace that even surprised her doctors, and began walking once more toward her dreams. Our friendship began when I shared my memories of travelling to the Far East in pursuit of my own health. I listened to every detail of her healing journey in the stone house she built in a small village in the Kaz Mountains, after distancing herself from everything that made her ill, and I witnessed the life she recreated from scratch.
Independent
Sabrina is a woman who lost her father of African origin at a young age and grew up caring for her French mother, who struggled with alcoholism for many years. I met her in London while we were living in the same house, at a time when she had given up her dream of becoming a doctor, once motivated by a desire to heal her mother and had set out to find her own path in life. Years later, when she hosted me in her apartment in Paris, she had become a woman standing firmly on her own feet. She was studying law at Sorbonne University, had worked for years as a waitress before beginning her career in law, and had transformed her loneliness into independence.
Resourceful
Nete, a Dane, a wife, a mother of three, a master of balance. After getting married, she and her husband lived in London with their two children for a long time. When their third child turned one, they took a short world tour while building their dream home in Copenhagen, and until it was finished, they continued to live in a small caravan in their garden. During their time in London, while caring for their first child, Vera, I became a close witness to their lives. Nete is a woman who can maintain her balance anywhere, attending to multiple tasks and people simultaneously with the skill of a magician and the calm of a saint. For her family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours, she is always a steadfast support.
Witch
Müjgan is a soul rooted in the light of Bodrum. I met her when she was my Pilates instructor, but our connection went beyond the physical. Our conversations spanning astrology, shamanism, past lives, and the trials of this life transformed us into two kindred spirits, independent of time and space. Müjgan is a healer who mends herself by experiencing life freely, and a witch who transforms those around her with her energy.
Müjgan is a soul rooted in the light of Bodrum. I met her when she was my Pilates instructor, but our connection went beyond the physical. Our conversations spanning astrology, shamanism, past lives, and the trials of this life transformed us into two kindred spirits, independent of time and space. Müjgan is a healer who mends herself by experiencing life freely, and a witch who transforms those around her with her energy.
Fragile
Hong is a young Chinese woman. She studied finance at university and worked in the field for some time before, in her thirties, deciding to follow her passions despite strong social and familial pressure. Despite having struggled with depression for many years, she moved from her hometown in China to Paris to pursue her long-held dream of studying photography. We were classmates at a photography school in Paris. What began as a conversation about my Woman-Being photography project gradually turned into a friendship in which we shared our life experiences, stories of depression, fears, hopes, and aspirations. Over time, this friendship evolved into a process of seeing, understanding, and accepting the vulnerable child within her—one she had previously hidden from everyone, including herself.
Empowering
Anya is a single Ukrainian mother living in England. We met years before she became a mother, when she was studying psychology in London. Years later, I visited her at her home in Birmingham to celebrate the motherhood she had longed for. She is a woman who chose from the outset to be a mother without being someone's wife. She lives with her autistic son, two dogs and a cat. She is a clinical psychologist specialising in children with disabilities. She struggles with life both financially and emotionally on her own, but most importantly, she does not complain about it. Empowering the people around her is part of her journey to be herself in this life.