Join our newsletter for the latest news, events and Shop discounts.
In Turkey, many teenage Muslims are sent by their families to religious schools where they are taught to memorize the Qur’an. In these single-sex, largely residential schools, young girls spend an intensive period of three or four years on their religious education. It was on her return to such a school, with her Hasselblad camera in hand, that Sabiha Çimen discovered her artistic voice. Her most significant project to date, “Hafiz: Guardians of the Qur’an”, captures students in attendance at several girls-only Qur’an schools throughout Turkey, weaving its emotional narrative through collected vignettes of the daydreams, trivialities, quiet rebellions and melodramas of youth.
