Taksim Calling by Frederick Lezmi

Depicting the protest of the Gezi Park movement at Taksim Square in Istanbul during May and June of 2013. The color photographs of the protest by Frederic Lezmi depict the tumultuous scenes of police and protesters, damaged property, graffiti, banners, camp sites, etc.

Lezmi's 100 Polaroid-size photographs of the protest are mixed with a 10 full-page archival photographs of the famous square, taken from postcard images. The chosen large format of loose oversized pages, similar to typical daily newspapers, should be understood as a critique of the Turkish newspapers who all but ignored the protests.

Moreover, this type of format, paginated with loose sheets, can be used as a poster for an exhibition and this was perhaps the purpose of Lezmi who gave most of the copies to the protesters and only 100 copies were reserved for the trade. In an unstapled newspaper form, he brought his small polaroids together with old postcards that he enlarged up to a A1 size. He collected his iPhone snaps from the time of the lively events and printed them in conversation with old postcards from Taksim Square, thus infusing the project with an irrevocable historical anchor.

A publication that breaks out of the classical publishing mould but which, due to the fluidity of the images and the composition of the layout, has placed it among the most up-to-date publications of this century.

Designer(s): Frederick Lezmi, Markus Schaden; Wolfgang Zurborn

Publisher(s): Sunday Books, Instanbul, Turkey

Year: 2013

Language(s): English

Pages: 18

Size: 42 x 55 cm

Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Turkey,2013