Fotohane DARKROOM: Young Voices in Analogue

Fotohane DARKROOM — the Mardin, Türkiye collective behind hands‑on analogue photography projects — has seen work by local and refugee children included in international shows such as the Chennai Photo Biennale (2025) and a string of UK and European exhibitions.

That matters because Fotohane’s approach foregrounds process and materiality: the group offers, in its own words, "free analogue photography education and darkroom training for local and refugee children and young people" (Fotohane), giving displaced and marginalised young makers access to traditional silver‑gelatin practice and community darkroom skills.

What they do

Fotohane DARKROOM is a registered nonprofit in Türkiye (FOTOHANE DARKROOM DERNEĞİ, Registration No. 47‑010‑041) and operates from Mardin, offering workshops, printing sessions and outreach aimed at Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish children and young people (organisation contact and legal details on fotohane.org).

Where the work has shown

• STORIES IN SHADOWS — a collection by Fotohane children at the Chennai Photo Biennale (listed 2025 on Fotohane’s exhibition pages and acknowledged by the CPB Foundation).
• IMAGING PEACE and I AM YOUR LOCAL — collective shows addressing conflict, migration and local perspectives, cited on Fotohane’s exhibition gallery.
• Participations in Refugee Week events in London and Athens, and collaborative projects such as THROUGH THEIR EYES with Calais Darkroom and THE CHEMISTRY OF FEELING (Vol. II) (Fotohane exhibition listings).
• An international collaboration presented as Fotohane x The Art House was hosted in Wakefield (Experience Wakefield listing).

External venues and curators have worked with Fotohane prints and workshops: credits on the organisation’s gallery cite curators including Gayatri Nair and Tiffany Fairey, and technical collaborators such as Izabel Della Siepe.

Why readers should care

In an era of pixel‑first image culture, Fotohane’s emphasis on analogue craft connects to the DIY ethics familiar to many music and youth subcultures: tape‑label spirit, tactile production and community learning. Their shows put voices shaped by displacement into material form — gelatin prints, contact sheets and darkroom marks — that resist quick scrolling and invite closer looking.

For updates, Fotohane maintains a project gallery and contact pages on fotohane.org and posts organisational news via LinkedIn (Fotohane on LinkedIn); their Child Safeguarding Policy is also published online (policy PDF).