The canyons of Hasankeyf were as old as the Earth; the caves that shaped them were as old as the human being. Today, the same civilization that grew up on the banks of the Tigris river, is the one that has decided the destruction of these places.

Located in the Turkish Kurdistan, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border, the village of Hasankeyf has been destroyed after the construction of the Ilisu Dam, an important part of the GAP project*. The people who used to live in this thousand-year old village have been moved to a new town. Hasankeyf has been submerged by the water and thousands years of history have been wiped out. All that remain is a Turkish flag waving over a spur of mountain.

 

“Hasankeyf: the drowning village” is the first part of a long term project of documentary photography that aims to witness to those that have been the last years of Hasankeyf.

The projects narrates of a wait made of abandonments and uncertainties, trying to return that feeling of suspension of a limbo where life flow ordinarily despite a present that leaves no room for the future.

 

 

*GAP is a project planned during the '70s for the economic development of Southeastern Anatolia and for controlling the flow of water directed towards Syria and Iraq.