Vanessa Winship, Sweet Nothing, 2008

During her long stay in Turkey, photographer Vanessa Winship was fascinated by the issues of borders and belonging. While she had become familiar with Turkish customs and traditions, which were far removed from her English habits, it was the schoolgirls in their little blue dresses that continued to fascinate her. Everywhere she traveled in this country traumatized by the guerrilla war, she came across these girls. They have become a symbol of the Turkish state, yet they are only little girls. In order to fight against the traditional values of the region, which want girls to stay at home, the government has launched a campaign allowing the most modest families to send all their children to school. As a result, the number of girls attending school has slowly increased. Sweet Nothing is a series of portraits of these schoolgirls. While photographing them, the author was deeply touched by the mixture of gravity and fragility of her little models, but especially by their incredible naturalness. An emotion that the reader cannot ignore while contemplating these magnificent images.