Charlotte Schmitz

This project focuses on the private space of women in a traditional neighborhood in Istanbul, where I lived more than two years - capturing its beauty, daily life and intimacy.

»While men are in public spaces, women tend to stay in private. Charlotte focuses on the private, therefore the women — which recalls the political argument used as a slogan of second- wave feminism from the late 1960s: “The private is political.” Charlotte’s photographs underscore the connection between her personal experience and larger socio-political issues that refers to any power relationships within a house. Moreover, Çok güzelim, çok güzel / I am so beautiful, so beautiful becomes a photographic politicization of beauty through the politics of housework, marriage, motherhood, childhood, friendship, puberty, sexuality, family, celebrations, traditions, short-lived pop songs and perhaps Balat itself. […] Her body of work not only reinforce the conception that the private is political, it also reveals something crucial about beauty: “The private is beautiful!” — regardless of the surrounding obstacles.« […]  Çok güzelim, çok güzel / I am so beautiful, so beautiful is a manifestation of touching colours, shapes and forms through photography, rather than simply perceiving the light through the eye of the camera. Charlotte’s photographs are the experiences that teach her the varieties of light, colour and intensity belonging to objects and subjects of touch. It is through her photographs that we again end up trusting our eyes to feel; the intimacy and the beauty.«

Cemre Yesil