We Refugees Archive

Alaa Hassan about his photo series:

I photographed Istanbul as seen by my fellow Syrians, who were mostly about to become refugees in Turkey or on their way to Europe. I focused on Istanbul as a transitional place. Be it in terms of travel, business or culture. The merging of Europe and middle Turkey can be traced everywhere you look, the marks of history; ancient, modern or contemporary, can be seen on every corner.
Istanbul is not just a mix but a blender. It takes in and appropriates new identities, languages, technologies, habits, art and cultures. Istanbul is somehow a manifestation to all of its surroundings and components and a representation of all of its histories.
This massive capital of +17 million inhabitants spreads over two continents, one can easily become no-one in the midst of an ever-going metropolis. And just like any mass of a city, it barely has any mercy. It’s an amazingly beautiful and devastatingly hard place to live.
On the same ferry from Kadıköy to Karaköy, there are tourists, bureaucrats, undocumented refugees, performers and retirees. One drinking yet another cup of tea, one feeding the seagulls. It’s a tiny break in the middle of rush hour, where one is in between the two continents and in between to stretches of stressful toil in the city. The city, though, never takes a break.

Alaa Hassan about his photo series:

I photographed Istanbul as seen by my fellow Syrians, who were mostly about to become refugees in Turkey or on their way to Europe. I focused on Istanbul as a transitional place. Be it in terms of travel, business or culture. The merging of Europe and middle Turkey can be traced everywhere you look, the marks of history; ancient, modern or contemporary, can be seen on every corner.
Istanbul is not just a mix but a blender. It takes in and appropriates new identities, languages, technologies, habits, art and cultures. Istanbul is somehow a manifestation to all of its surroundings and components and a representation of all of its histories.
This massive capital of +17 million inhabitants spreads over two continents, one can easily become no-one in the midst of an ever-going metropolis. And just like any mass of a city, it barely has any mercy. It’s an amazingly beautiful and devastatingly hard place to live.
On the same ferry from Kadıköy to Karaköy, there are tourists, bureaucrats, undocumented refugees, performers and retirees. One drinking yet another cup of tea, one feeding the seagulls. It’s a tiny break in the middle of rush hour, where one is in between the two continents and in between to stretches of stressful toil in the city. The city, though, never takes a break.

Alaa Hassan is a documentary artist from Syria. In 2013, two years after the start of the war in Syria, he left the country and has since lived in New York, Berlin and, for a while, Istanbul. In his photographic, film and audio-visual works, Alaa Hassan deals with political persecution, migration and memory. In the 2014 photo series shown here, he looks at the city of Istanbul – as a city of refuge and transit for other Syrian refugees, as a metropolis and melting pot, as a place of breathless everyday life and small quiet moments.

All photos © Alaa Hassan, 2014.