Fair_play by Cenk Erdoğan
A visual narrative built on the belief that time doesn't just flow forward, but folds in on itself, dropping the past's weight into the center of the present. Tracing his memories, this long-term photobook bridges his childhood country fairs with the limbo of today's traveling carnivals. Shot by Cenk Erdoğan over five years across Anatolia and Thrace, it reflects life's endless cycle: where the past folds into the present, children become nomadic adults, and adults revert to childhood.
The country fair embodies a massive transience. Set up in empty fields for a few days, this heterotopia creates its own world with yellow bulbs, rusty iron, and crowd noise blending into songs. Soon dismantled, it moves on, leaving behind only crushed grass and deep silence a self-revolving game. This cyclical transience is a nomadic story constantly uprooted, much like the void left behind by a human lifespan.
"... Time, it seems, does not softly flow forward. Leaves of memory, folding back on themselves, tip the full weight of the past right into the heart of the present as they curl-just like the one in your hand right now... With each new fold, those childlike memories from years ago come and layer themselves over today’s soil, today’s lights..."
Amidst this transience, moving beyond a mere traveler's gaze, Erdoğan pairs lives caught in limbo, carnival spectacle, humor, and decisive moments through a diptych layout. He doesn't just document this fleeting world; he completes it with a book object that folds in on itself, becoming its own funfair. This is his photographic play.
- Text Editor: Ece Eroğlu
- Photography: Cenk Erdoğan
- Photo Editor: Cenk Erdoğan
- Graphic Design: Cenk Erdoğan
- Texts: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bülent Ümit Erutku, Yusuf Darıyerli, Mahir Ünsal Eriş, Cenk Erdoğan
- Language: Türkçe-İngilizce
- Translation: Ece Eroğlu, Seda Ateş
- 950 gr.
- Edition of 300, numbered and signed by the artist, September 2026
- Printed by: A4 Ofset
- Paper&Binding: 200 gr. Arctic Volume, Leporello binding, hard cover with book jacket
- 130 pages, 136 photographs
- Dimensions: 20x22 cm
