Lukas Birk & Natasha Christia, GÜLISTAN, 2019

GÜLISTAN brings us the story of Kenan & Filiz, two residents of Istanbul celebrating their lives through the cities finest establishments in the 1960s and 70s. These establishments offered photographic services and presented the images to their clients in fashionable envelopes. GÜLISTAN offers a subtle resistance to the currently conservative forces in Turkey, illustrating a time of Westwards thinking in the capital. As well as a unique insight into the bustling world of yesterdays Istanbul and a very peculiar photographic culture very much part of every families archive.