Asli Baykal

Asli Baykal’s Darkroom, created with the young participants of the Sirkhane Darkroom Workshop in a border town between Turkey and Syria, opens the screening program. In it, children roam the area, looking at the world through the viewfinders of analog cameras, in an intimate vision of the medium as a form of play and a way to forge an alternate reality in a conflict zone.

Darkroom, a short film by Asli Baykal, 14’23, 2022 At the modern-day crossroads of Turkey and Syria, the neighborhood of Istasyon is taken over by children with cameras. Through their gaze, they transform cinder block villages into portals and roam freely across abandoned train tracks to Sirkhane Darkroom, an oasis of red light and pomegranate trees, where their images are born. Darkroom is an experimental and celebratory portrait of Istasyon’s youth and their capacity to forge an alternate reality within a conflict zone. Embedded in this vibrant 16mm film, a co-creation between the film crew and these photography students is a reverence for the mysterious power and intimacy of analog image-making.