sweet nothings

vanessa winship

I am very drawn to Vanessa Winship's work which I have been following with interest over the past few months. Winship was awarded the World Press Photo Award and the first Sony Award for her celebrated project, 'Sweet Nothings'. Currently featured at the National Portrait Gallery, Host Gallery , The Photographer's Gallery and in various publications. 

The sensitive portraits of rural school girls from the borderlands of Eastern Turkey are poignant and alluring. The young girls are photographed on the cusp of great change - both in themselves and what they represent for the future of women in Turkey. 

'I had been living and working in the region for almost a decade, and in Turkey itself for more that four years. I was drawn by ideas of borders and belonging.' comments Winship on the work. 'One enduring image that had always struck me wherever I travelled was the schoolgirls in their little blue dresses, the same in every town, city or village. These dresses with their lace collars and sweet messages embroidered on the bodices, were the symbol of the Turkish state, but the girls who wore them were simply little girls.'

The photographer describes the school girls as representative of the many who live on the borderlands between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Armenia all wearing 'similar dresses' and inhabiting a land that is harsh and unforgiving. 

'Knowing their status I wanted to give a space for the girls to have a moment in front of the camera,' describes Winship who opted for a slower more formal way of making the portraits with every frame composed at the same distance to give an equality to each girl.

Sweet Nothings is a quietly powerful body of work. The images resonant in front of the viewer as Winship has captured, very beautifully, the awkward innocence of these little girls who are unwittingly taking their place in photographic history.

The quotes by Vanessa Winship are taken from an article by the photographer on her work at  lensculture

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