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Drowning Village

Kenia Sadoun photographs an Anatolian village submerged by the ever-growing strategic interest in the region.

Anatolia, Eastern Turkey, 2019. After 10 years of threats, Hasankeyf is one of the villages flooded as a consequence of the construction of the Ilısu dam, part of a project aimed at doubling the hydroelectric energy in the Turkish part of the Tigris. The inhabitants are forced to leave their ancient cave village, whose history moved through Persian, Byzantine, Umayyad and Ottoman cultures, to relocate to the other side of the river into identical, prefabricated houses.

For a period spanning three years, Kenia Sadoun photographed the social, economical and environmental consequences of such a decision, which she describes as a strategic move of the Turkish government to impoverish Kurdish culture and control the flow of water through Iraq and part of Syria.

Follow Kenia Sadoun’s work on her
website

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