Photographs Bridge Armenia and Turkey

The exhibition features 130 works of Ozcan Yurdalan, Serra Akcan, Mehmet Kacmaz, Kerem Uzel and Tolga Sezgin of NarPhotos group and Ruben Mangasarian, Karen Mizoian, Anahit Hayrapetian, Nelli Sishmanian and German Avagian of Patker photo group.

The photographers say that growing problems fed by prejudices between Armenia and Turkey can be eased by dialogue, and dialogue starts by being able to say "hi" to others in the first place.

According to the project, which started in March, photographers from Istanbul and photographers from Yerevan worked respectively in both cities for one week to reflect daily life with their cameras.

Photographs draw images from common localities in two cities as well as architectural details and excerpts from religious, sports, entertainment events and ways of life.

80 year old debate

Armenia and Turkey are two neighboring countries with no diplomatic relations and a closed border for more than 80 years.

Whether or not the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians living under the reign of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide is a matter for heated debate.

Some countries have declared that a genocide took place, but others have resisted calls to do so.

During World War I, as the Ottoman Turkish empire fought Russian forces, some of the Armenian minority in eastern Anatolia sided with the Russians.

Turkey took reprisals. On 24 April 1915 it rounded up and killed hundreds of Armenian community leaders.

In May 1915, the Armenian minority, two or three million strong, was forcefully deported and marched from the Anatolian borders towards Syria and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Many died en route.

Exhibition will go on tour

A book of the exhibition also went out in four languages (Turkish, Armenian, English and German) with the exhibition.

The exhibition first opened in Yerevan and will stay open in Istanbul until December 23 before going on tour to France, Italy, Netherlands and Germany.(EÜ)