Words By Hilmi Yavuz | Photographs By Kamil Fırat
G-Art Gallery brings together, through a carefully selected presentation, the book that compiles the texts written by philosopher-poet Hilmi Yavuz over the past thirty years in response to Kamil Fırat’s photographic works, alongside an exhibition composed of the photographs that inspired these writings. Taking place between 5 December 2025 and 31 January 2026, this encounter renders visible a long-standing intellectual partnership between two thinkers, offering a concise yet intensive retrospective of Kamil Fırat’s photographic practice.
Hilmi Yavuz has always approached the photographic works of Kamil Fırat—his student in the 1980s, later a close friend, yet one with whom the mentor-student relationship was never entirely dissolved—with particular attentiveness. This dialogue began in 1996 with Yavuz’s text on Fırat’s Cappadocia series and has since evolved into a sustained inquiry into the concept of the image through Fırat’s photographs.
Both the exhibition and the accompanying book encompass ten distinct periods in Kamil Fırat’s oeuvre. Texts written in response to the series Cappadocia, Subject = Hilmi Yavuz, The Whirling Dervish, The Shore, The Dome, Dream Cities, On the Horizon, Stone Faces, Horses & Cities, and Letters reveal not only Hilmi Yavuz’s approach to the image as a philosophical and poetic construct, but also offer insight into the conceptual trajectory of Kamil Fırat’s photographic journey.
Throughout his nearly fifty-year engagement with photography, Kamil Fırat has consistently chosen to work through long-term, concentrated explorations centered on specific themes. He regards each project as a structural element within an ongoing personal narrative. In Cappadocia, he examines the existence of the universe through form, structure, and light. Subject = Hilmi Yavuz marks his entry into the realm of phenomenology, transferring an object’s self-narration into the limits of the image. In The Dome, he constructs a photographic discourse between Islamic aesthetics and the history of the Ottoman Empire. Stone Faces addresses today’s political realities through the concept of irony. In On the Horizon, the problematic of time is translated into form. The Whirling Dervish focuses on labor as one of humanity’s highest values. Horses & Cities transforms the deep history of the geography we inhabit into a narrative shaped around the ancient image of the horse. Letters offers a forward-looking reflection on contemporary environmental concerns.
The fact that all these works converge around the axis of language is neither accidental nor incidental; it is, rather, a necessity. While the visible point of intersection between Kamil Fırat and Hilmi Yavuz may appear to be photography, the fundamental issue at stake is language itself.
Words by Hilmi Yavuz | Photographs by Kamil Fırat reconnects Hilmi Yavuz’s texts with Kamil Fırat’s artistic production through both the exhibition and the book, inviting viewers into a layered and contemplative journey through the narrative terrains of photography.
The exhibition “Words by Hilmi Yavuz | Photographs by Kamil Fırat” can be visited at G-Art Gallery until 31 January 2026, daily between 11:00 and 19:00, except Sundays and Mondays. The accompanying book Words by Hilmi Yavuz | Photographs by Kamil Fırat is available at the gallery throughout the exhibition period.