Istanbul: Faces of Now – a lockdown diary | Art and design

The ability to move audiences beyond cliche is a characteristic shared by photographers shortlisted for the Prix Pictet, which is important as we emerge from the Covid-19 crisis. The global lockdown has given birth to new cliches: wildlife cautiously exploring unpeopled streets; iconic monuments devoid of tourists, save for the occasional solitary individual escaping their confinement.

This commission asked photographers to move beyond the obvious and present a series of images that respond to the issues confronting us, to begin to plot a route to a new future and to new ways of thinking about the world.

* * *

Faces of Now

June 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of my move to Istanbul. In my hectic global life, I have finally been grounded in my favourite city. The past few months have given me a chance to explore Istanbul more intimately than in all my years of living here. I set out to portray the city in crisis and confinement, but what I found was a diverse social fabric where pockets of hope and human resilience prevail.

As a tribute to the multiple layers of Istanbul’s unique cultural identity, I have collected stories from “non-essential workers”, whose lives have been derailed by the pandemic. As they spoke to me, they related not just their fears, but also their hopes about the future and ways of trying to adapt to a new reality. From street vendors to magicians, barbers to dancers, hammam scrubbers to imams, each expressed dignity in the face of hardship and a unique way of resisting and overcoming their daily stresses. In his memoire Istanbul: Memories and the City, Orhan Pamuk wrote: “If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too.” As I explored the various parts of this vast megalopolis and connected with its inhabitants in their own microcosms, their moods and feelings imprinted on mine. In this process, I began to embrace the city as my own in a way that I haven’t done before.

Özgür Kapmaz, magician

I meet the illusionist on board Le Vapeur Magique, an 1828 steamship, where he performed for tourist parties and corporate dinners before the pandemic. On the lower deck we enter a small theatre with a stage framed by the black velvet curtain. Empty chairs stand in semi-circles, the lights are dim. Özgür, in a magician’s dark brown frock coat with a white frilly collar, shows me his card tricks first. He waves a hand and the top card changes suit. He picks up a small table by the tablecloth and it flies, he pulls out a wallet and sets it on fire.

“My first audience was my family.” Özgür taught himself magic when he was six years old by watching other magicians on TV.

“I am a freelancer. If the phone rings I work, if it does not, I don’t work. I was scared of the pandemic, of the impact.” Since…