135 - Sabiha Çimen
© Sabiha Çimen
Sabiha Çimen was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1986. She is a self-taught photographer, focusing on Islamic culture, portraiture and still life.
Sabiha graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University with a Bachelor's Degree in International Trade and Finance, and went on to take a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies. Her Master's thesis on subaltern studies, which includes her photo story, is entitled ‘Turkey as a simulated country’, and was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2019.
Sabiha has worked on her story entitled ‘Hafız: Guardians of the Quran’ since 2017, traveling to five cities in Turkey to produce ninety-nine portraits on medium format film. With this project, she participated in the World Press Photo Foundation’s Joop Swart Masterclass in 2018, was awarded 2nd prize in the long-term project category of the 2019 World Press Awards, and 3rd prize in PH Museum's Women Photographers Grant.
Sabiha is one of five recent new nominees at Magnum Photos. It was recently announced that she has also been awarded the 2020 Canon Female Photojournalist of the year grant which will be used to continue work on her Hafiz project. She has also won another prestigious award but the results of that have not yet been publicly revealed.
On episode 135, Sabiha discusses, among other things:
Why she doesn’t yet have a website
Her project Hafiz: Guardians of the Qu’ran
How the headscarf ban in Turkey impacted her life
Her portrait project Urban Refugees and why she shot it at night
Her masters thesis on Subaltan studies
Attending the WPP Foundation Joop Swart Masterclass
Winning 2nd in the World Press Photo awards
Photographers she likes
Her thoughts on becoming a new Magnum Photos nominee
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