Through the mild and wild Kurdistan

My brother was an avid reader of Karl May’s adventure novels. The volume entitled “Durchs wilde Kurdistan” was the inspiration for this photo project.

I travelled through the Kurdish areas of Syria and Turkey in 2001, 2004 and 2005. From the beginning of my trip in Aleppo, I created a photographic diary capturing particular moments of my trip and also of everyday Kurdish life. My Kurdistan is gentle, a living place far from the violence documented in today’s news from the region. At the same time, the photographs do not show the mythical wilderness described by Karl May (1842 – 1912) despite the fact he had never seen this land.

Furthermore, the photographs are not tourist snapshots and do not represent unforgettable moments, but rather an extremely personal and at the same time global vision of life as it is lived – in its entirety and free from any political, social or media definition: simply tranche de vie.

When I was travelling through the beautiful Syria, I never once thought that a horrible war would break out 10 years later. I had the feeling some people were limited in terms of self-development, but little did I know that this could lead to war in a country where people are heavily controlled by official institutions.