Sirkhane Darkroom, a Turkish initiative which teaches refugee children photography skills, is raising funds to continue photography workshops after the devastating Turkish earthquake in February.
The initiative, which has been run by Syrian photographer Serbest Salih since 2017, brings local children and refugees together through film photography workshops, teaching the children to take and develop photographs.
After the devastation of the earthquake earlier this year – which killed nearly 60,000 people and displaced more than two million across Turkey and Syria – Salih and publisher DoBeDo set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to continue its mobile darkroom operations.
The campaign reached its target of $10,000 this week, and will begin running workshops next week. The fundraising page is still active for further donations.
The GoFundMe’s page says the project relies on “photography’s ability to help refugee children tell their story, and the project encourages them not only to use photography as a language and a therapeutic medium, but also as an activity to help them assimilate into their new surroundings and to bond with other children in their new communities.”
The page continues: “This money will go towards buying the materials needed for the workshops, such as film and cameras, and contribute to the more logistical expenses of fuel and car rentals which allow Serbest to travel to affected zones across the country.”
Sirkhane Darkroom, which is based in the southern Turkish city of Mardin, has held exhibitions of photographs taken by the children and also released several books of their photographs.
Sirkhane Darkroom shared the follow images with Kosmo Foto taken by children attending recent workshops after the February earthquake.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
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