SIRKHANE - La caravane/chambre-noire pour les enfants du séisme

Through the eyes of the children affected by the earthquakes Last February, the earth shook on the border between Turkey and Syria. On Turkish territory, 2.2 million families saw their lives brutally interrupted. Among the victims of the double earthquake, the deadliest in the region's modern history, were more than 850,000 relocated Syrian and Turkish children. Six months after the disaster, the Sirkhane Darkroom on wheels made a stopover in the affected areas and opened its doors to children, offering them silver-based photo workshops in which they could become photographers. The caravan-darkroom is launched... For fifteen months, the caravan will travel to Diyarbakır, Adıyaman and Kahramanmaraş (epicenter of the first earthquake), staying for a month in villages to run workshops for displaced children. And Serbest Salih is at the wheel of the caravan! I am a photographer from Kobani, Syria, currently based in Mardin, Turkey. I am the director of Sirkhane DARKROOM, a non-profit mobile darkroom and photo lab that aims to empower underprivileged children from Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. What motivates me to lead this project is witnessing the impact it has on the children. Seeing a child gradually express themselves, observing the integration between local and refugee children, hearing them discuss topics like gender equality and their rights, and most importantly, experiencing how they perceive the world through their eyes is truly inspiring. The photographs taken by the children are incredibly powerful, as they capture authentic moments from their lives while infusing them with artistry and imagination. With your support, we can empower children and enable them to make an impact within their communities, replacing their trauma with the power of art and the global connections of humanity. THE SIRKHANE PROJECT, REPLACING PAIN WITH ART In Mardin, on the border between Turkey and Syria, the Sirkhane Darkroom programme was born in May 2017, within the Heryerde Sanat - Sirkhane association itself founded in 2012. The association's darkroom mobilises black and white silver photography for educational purposes. Sirkhane Darkroom designs photo workshops so that Syrian, Turkish and Iraqi children can get to know each other better, while broadening their perspective on their lives and their environment. Serbest, who runs the workshops, places great emphasis on social diversity. During the workshops, local children rub shoulders with their fellow refugees. Thanks to the programme, the children transform their experience of violence, poverty and war into something creative and beautiful. Photography becomes a powerful educational tool, enabling them to tell their stories, their realities. The workshops have started in the Istasyon district, on Sirkhane's premises. In 2019, Sirkhane Darkroom will go mobile with the transformation of a container into a darkroom. From now on, the photographer will be able to meet children in villages far from the city and close to the Syrian and Iraqi borders. Today, Salih is heading for the areas affected by the earthquake. How does a workshop work? The workshops, which last about a month, take place with groups of around ten children, mostly aged between seven and seventeen, and Serbest supervises two or three groups a day. The children are accompanied at every stage of the photographic process. THE MEETING During an initial fun-filled orientation course, the children meet and get to know each other through games, and learn about different photographic practices, from pinhole cameras to instant cameras and digital photography. PRACTICE The next classes are devoted to composition, and in the final session, the children go outside and practice imagining their composition: they make photographs without a roll of film being loaded. THE PHOTO SERIES Finally, they go home with a compact camera, this time loaded with film, and return one or two weeks later to develop the photographs they've taken. PRINTING When it comes to developing and printing, Salih explains each step to the participants, and they carry out the technical stages together. It's a moment of sharing between the children, and an unforgettable experience for them to see the image appear on photosensitive paper for the first time. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT These workshops also enable us to talk to children about issues such as their rights, child labor and marriage, gender equality, and the environment and ecology. These workshops also involve the families who are invited to attend. At first reluctant, they end up getting more involved when they see the results achieved by their children. Salih confides that this is all the more important for girls, who often don't leave the house. In a context and region where children reach maturity at an early age, it's important to talk about these subjects. The aim is to prolong their childhood and give them the opportunity to express themselves through the power of art. Ithaque, the partner darkroom Ithaque is a shared darkroom dedicated to perpetuating the know-how of black-and-white silver photography. This hybrid space, located in the heart of the Marais district, comprises two areas: one for photographic exhibitions, the other a laboratory for silver prints. Concerned with the continuity of the Sirkhane Darkroom project, Ithaque has set up this collection to ensure the continuity of the workshops. In autumn 2023, the photographs taken by the children will be exhibited for the first time in France at Ithaque. Press coverage : The Guardian, ‘Something magical happens’: the cameras helping refugee children to heal Jacqui Palumbo, "CNN, Young refugees on the Syrian border were given cameras. This is what they saw"