Photo-artist helps create bridges in İzmir's poor district

A dozen children between the ages 10 and 12 sit in the small meeting room of a renovated building that houses the Panagia Galatousa Chapel, at the heart of İzmir's Agora, the ancient city center.

The children who look like they could jump out of the room and run through the sunlit street are residents of the multi-ethnic impoverished neighborhood. Four of them are of Syrian origin and two need the help of a "classmate" to follow their course. The course is photography - in a few minutes, they will each be given a camera and be sent off to photograph the city they live in. But before that, their instructor asks them what they would like to photograph, and the replies are both simple and touching: "Stray animals," "The historical things," "our house that is collapsing" and "roses in the park."

Their teacher, Serra Akcan, is an Istanbul-based photographer whose eye has brought new light on a number of controversial issues such as the Turkish-Armenian relations, the few remaining Armenians in Diyarbakır, Kurdish prisoners in hunger strikes, Gezi Park protests and numerous women's demonstrations. Akcan utilizes photography as a medium for dialogue between reluctant parties. In 2006, she was part of a Turkish and Armenian photographers group who launched the project named "Merhabarev," "Merhaba" meaning Hello in Turkish and "Barev" meaning "Hello" in Armenian, so that both sides could get to know each other through images of daily lives in Istanbul and Yerevan. "We have placed the first stone and are continuing to build the bridge for the following decade," she told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview. 

Akcan's class will snap photos for a week and the team will later be brought together for an exhibition. "Once you give the kids a camera,...