Due to the convenience of witnessing their development step by step, being their next door neighbour and sharing a number of things from coffee beans to vacuum cleaner, it was inevitable for me to write on their  ‘Yolda: Nar Photos Arşivinden Türkiye Fotoğrafları (On The Road: Images of Turkey From The Nar Photos Archive)’ exhibition, which is formed out of the archive of Nar Photos and gives an opportunity to look at the ten years history of Turkey as well as the issues that the agency is focused on, in Istanbul Modern.

Nar Photos is one of the first examples of collective movement practice, which has been interrupted in our country especially after the 80's coup d'etat and which came into existence in the field of photography  in the beginning of 2000s.  The series of seminars, which has been started in 2001 by Fotoğraf Vakfı girişimi (Photography Foundation Initiative) and ‘Fotoğrafçı Çocuklar Atölyesi (Photographer Children's Atelier’ and World Press Photo’ that was started in İzmit Old Arsenal Tent City after the 1999 earthquake and soon extended to other cities since it became one of the most important initiative of its field, is the first link pioneering and mediate the establishment of Nar Photos. Discovering the enabling power of collective movement in the first example and universal hints on producing photo reportages in the second example, Nar Photos has been using photography as a visual tool to witness the era we are in, to understand and express the world ever since.

Mehmet Kaçmaz, who has added more than ten people over the years on top of the founding members of eight people, summarizes as "There is a manifesto that was written during the establishment of the agency and there are people, who wrote it and we call them the founding staff. Then we have friends, who have accepted this manifesto and joined us in the up coming period. However there is nothing like the founder members have the last word to say kind of attitude from the operational perspective. We don't have a hierarchy, although we come closer to the authority of age and knowledge from time to time. Being photographers is not the mutual point gathering us. There are photographers in Turkey who are much more talented than us. The thing that holds us together is something exclusive of photography." and Erhan Atık, who is one the new members of the collective, summarizes as such: "All of us have got issues with this country or photography and do also have a quest around these issues. Act in this quest all together is more advantageous both as physically and emotionally."

Although Nar Photos have increased their number of followers in social media with breaking news photos, they are photographers, who basically produce slower and long term documentary projects. 75 photos and 6 videos take place in 'Yolda (On The Road)' exhibition, which has the characteristics of being a selection of photo reportages produced by the members of Nar Photo members, who are photographers focusing on the the process rather than the result, facts rather than incidents, trying to understand the things going on behind what is lived and producing with this reflex, in the last ten years. 'Yolda (On The Road)'  has quite an extensive subject scale ranging from seasonal workers to paper collectors, from social issues extending over a period of time such as the death fasts and strikes to street movement such as 8th March Women march, transsexual pride march, Newroz celebrations, Dersim freedom whirling and  Ergenekon protests; from celebrations showing the ethnic and cultural versatility of  Turkey such as Easter, a wedding in Greek Patriarchate, shearing festival in Trabzon to works on the urban life over from urban transformation, public transport and immigrants.

Going on a journey in the recent ten years history of a country such as Turkey, of which the agenda constantly change and a new issue is added on top of the old ones every day, is not something that can be underestimated. Thus, it becomes important on what grounds the choice of photographs are made for the exhibition. Mehmet Kaçmaz is the one, who is addressing this issue again: "First of all, we went all through the website and made a list of all the stories: Women's stories, workers' stories, cultural research, portraits, journeys etc. We thought about the importance and significance of these and how many photographs we should have from each subject matter. Then we asked from all our members to make a choice, formed out of photographs that they care and wish to have in the exhibition, related to these matters and then we collected them in a pool. A pool made out of approximately 600 photographs... Without relying on the names, we reduced the number to 300 by asking the significance of the matter in the last ten years of Turkey and if we wish to exhibit that. Then we sent this selection of 300 photographs to Sena (Sena Çakırkaya -curator of the exhibition-). Finally this selection of 75 photographs, which turned into an assembly of events on the last ten years of Turkey. "

As a person following the works of Nar Photos closely, I should emphasize that this choice is a bit problematic since Nar Photos come from a photo reportage tradition and have the tendency to express the issues with series formed out of 10-15 photographs that are dealt with different perspectives, rather than a single photo. Each story -except 'Gezi' and ‘Milyonluk Manzara (View Worth Millions)’ series - is represented with one photograph in the exhibition in order not to miss any incident that has marked the recent history of Turkey and in the name of giving a place for photographs from many different matters. Kaçmaz explains the reason for this as: "The photographs we have chosen are sometimes not the best pictures of that series. Those just couldn't find a place in the exhibition. The photographs had to have flow side by side and had to refer to each other both technically and contextually. There is a flow progressing on a cardboard made road. The photographs shouldn't intersect and go somewhere else." Formed also with the effect of spatial limitations, this presentation can be interpreted as attempts of Nar Photos and curator of the exhibition, who has so far formed a sentence by putting their stories into words through series of photographs, to make a sentence on a bigger story -the last ten years of Turkey- . But, as one of the members of the collective -Saner Şen- said, I wish some other issues that they cared about, have taken a place in rather a broader form like 'Gezi' and ‘Milyonluk Manzara (View Worth Millions)’ series in the exhibition; so that this sentence wouldn't be an inverted sentence in compared to the ones we have been used to hear from Nar Photos.

Even so, if we summarize as Orhan Cem Çetin emphasized in an interview, which took place on the following the opening of the exhibition, with the members of the Nar Photos: "The opening of this exhibition in Istanbul Modern which is formed out of examples of documentary photography that is placed historically out of modern art or photography as a form of art in Turkey, is important in the name of showing that these two areas, which look as if ostracising each other, in fact have intersecting points.." With the wishes of internationally recognised Istanbul Modern, which gives place for the examples of documentary photography accepted by museums or documentary works from Turkey on various occasions; yet opens its doors first time for the exhibition of a collective from Turkey that considers itself  'not an artist, closer to photo journalism', adding new ones to this elegant act of theirs, and Nar Photos, which has found themselves on the street after Gezi, to slow down -even though the words 'slowing down' and 'catching' sound ironic when they are next to each other- have more ten years by producing work that are catching the spirit of time and the exhibition to be visited by  Nar Photos' social media followers until 9th November...