Witnessing Gezi
Photojournalist Emin Özmen has chronicled conflicts and regions worldwide marked by violent regimes. In Istanbul, a small protest against the felling of trees in Taksim Gezi Park ignited a wave of unrest. Özmen took up his camera as social media transformed the local action into a nationwide uprising against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Gezi Park protests escalated into nearly 5,000 demonstrations across Turkey, involving over 3.5 million participants and resulting in 22 deaths and 8,000 injuries.
Filmed through the eye of a news and documentary journalist, Witnessing Gezi has a visual language with a distinctly different tone to many of the works in PROTEST. Though fully immersed in events, Özmen strives to maintain professional neutrality. Aided by his press credentials, his impartial gaze draws us deep into the throng, bringing us face to face with demonstrators and Turkish riot police. The high-contrast black-and-white footage imparts a film noir sensibility that, even in its most intense moments, frames activists and riot police with equal weight.