ATEŞ ALPAR - STONE SHELL SILENT

'Stone Shell Silent' series reveals the flooding of Hasankeyf, a city on the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey, which was actually declared a nature conservation area by Turkey in 1981, and the ecological destruction in the region. The Ilısu Dam, a so-called human-centered "civilization" project, has displaced some 80,000 people in addition to the immense history it has submerged. It has also led to the destruction of the Tigris Valley, which has a very important biodiversity. The impact of the dam on the Tigris was not only environmental, but also socio-cultural. The images in this series document the changes over time and the organized destruction of nature and culture. As the traces of antiquity are erased, time and space, life and death, power and opposition become entangled. The separation of life and death, characteristic of modernity, becomes intertwined with this destruction. The familiar way of life is turned inside out. The destruction affects those who lost their lives as well as those who lived. Dead bodies that had become one with nature are (re)exposed to a colonialist injury. As the historical traces of communal life are erased, a hegemonic process of cultural construction takes place. This is a story that is not alien to "us," it is our story being told.