On June 21 2022, Magnum Foundation and 10×10 Photobooks will host an in-person salon with Sabiha Çimen and Bieke Depoorter as part of Magnum’s 75th-anniversary celebrations.
Çimen and Depoorter will be discussing their groundbreaking photobooks, Hafiz and Agata, both published in 2021.
Sabiha Çimen: Hafiz
Sabiha Çimen‘s first book Hafiz (Red Hook Editions, 2021) is the culmination of three years of photographing girls Quran schools in five cities in Turkey. This is a subject that she knows very well since she herself attended one of those schools as a teenager, with her twin sister. The title refers to one who has memorized all 604 pages of the Holy Quran. Historically, the task of memorization began during the time of Muhammad. The individual process can take up to four years and is usually done by girls ranging in age from eight to nineteen. Turkey has thousands of Quran schools. This world has never been captured with so much intimacy before, as only Çimen can do, because she is part of this culture. Every photo reveals a different aspect and gives us a deeper understanding of the daily life and the dreams of these girls.
Bieke Depoorter: Agata
In October 2017, Bieke Depoorter met Agata in a strip club in Paris. Over the next three years, the women dove deep into a collaboration, creating a small alternative universe that served as a container for them to explore questions they each had regarding identity, performance, and representation. Agata (self-published, 2021; 2nd ed. 2022) tells both the story of a young woman using a photographer to find some sense of identity, and the story of a photographer using a young woman to better understand photographic authorship and herself. These intertwined narratives are threaded via a combination of images, letters, and notes, but what defines the dialogue is the ever-present reflex of self-awareness and self-reflection. The result is a project that never lands on any sort of conclusive truth, instead highlighting the slippery nature of truth in situations where power, responsibility, and control are in a constant state of flux.
Please RSVP to the event here.
