Cemre Yeşil Gönenli, Hayal & Hakikat: A Handbook of Forgiveness & A Handbook of Punishment, 2025

“Hayal & Hakikat” contains photographs of 20th century prisoners from the photo albums of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Among Abdulhamid II’s many interests were detective novels and crime fiction In the 25th year of his reign he ordered all murder convicts to be photographed with their hands visible, in preparation for a planned amnesty. He has been moved by pseudo-scientific information he had read in a crime novel that “any criminal with a thumb joint longer than the index finger joint, is inclined to murder.” To this end, the photographs in this book show the subjects’ hands for the purpose of classification.