Fragile Memories

On February 6, 2023, two massive earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş and the surrounding area instantly wiped the city's memory from the face of the earth.

First the earthquake, then the collapse; all that remained was rubble, emptiness, and silent witnesses. In this series, the photographs taken using digital pinhole technology make visible not only the moment of the catastrophe but also the subsequent process.

The vacant lots that replaced the rubble are gradually being filled with new buildings. Yet, in the foundation of every new structure, the echo of lost lives is still palpable. These photographs bear silent witness to the pain-ridden transformation of a city.

The fact that they were captured using digital pinhole technology blurs the stark reality; they make the memory, which oscillates between pain, chaos, and reconstruction, vaguely visible. Each image carries within it the weight of the destruction, the silence of the emptiness, and the strange mixture of hope and grief of rebuilding.

The blurry images further deepen the indelible marks on our memory. The imperfect, shaky, and vague visual language of digital pinhole photography captures not only the chaos of the earthquake, but also the transformation of the rubble into emptiness and the newly emerging structures.

Each image makes visible both the healing and the reopening of wounds in a city's memory. These photographs not only document a catastrophe; they also proclaim the temporal transformation of remembering and the inability to forget.