life in scale (kali zirikli) [2024-] black-and-white analogue photography

A long-term photography project exploring the world through the eyes of kali zirikli.

kali zirikli, alongside carmen, is one of the personas I work through. She is a woman in black who can turn into a crow at any given moment. By inhabiting her, I experience and access a sense of bodily freedom and autonomy.

She moves through a world where a heavy, grey mass has settled over everything and its form is constantly shifting and changing. Her world is between the real and the dream. She photographs her life and the people around her. When she wants to be photographed, she decides how. Digital noise and exploitation cannot reach her. She has escaped the algorithmic gaze and feels that her images and her body and her life matter.

Most of the photographs in this series are shown publicly only offline. These offline images may not be reproduced or displayed digitally, and may not be photographed. Digital access is available for professional review on request.

The photographs form small poems in groups, together with their titles. Any number of groups can be shown at the same time.

The project builds on Romani women’s gaze and reverses a history of being photographed and imagined by others. It treats authorship as control over how an image is made, seen and shared, and refuses consumption. It is part of my exploration of the Romani woman’s body between two patriarchies, European and Romani: the first exploits, objectifies, and surveils, the second shames and urges to cover up.