Helio Leon: “The Purple Room” – Reliving Istanbul Memories

Helio Leon is a photographer and filmmaker based in Dublin, his documentary and autobiographical work has been screened and exhibited at various venues and festivals around the world, such as Noorderlicht, Krakow Photo Month, Slideluck Tokyo, Photo Kathmandu, Landskrona and Marfa Open, in Texas.

Turkey –                               THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT


“This is the story about when I came back to Istanbul, the city where I had been happy when I was 20. I came back with a strong mourning inside me and I found that the city had been destroyed along with my dreams, reality was striped, as the wounds of the city were intensely reflecting my own wounds and fears, my feelings of being in a dead end, as well as my issues with love and intimacy.

The connection with the city has always been very strong, as if I’d been there in another life, as if my imagination could take shape in reality, that was provoking a cocktail of feelings in me, excited by the call of the city, by its shadows and its pride, its wonderful noises, its mythical people, my people.”


Photography & Written by Helio Leon

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