MA Scholarship Project: Erkin Kalayci
Master of Arts Photography
Domain: Identity and Culture
Project #6: The Hidden Shaman
The Hidden Shaman is a research-led MA project exploring the unique subculture in a small village in Western Türkiye. For centuries, this subculture has contained some traces of ancient Turkic belief motives before Islam, which is the current primary religion in Anatolia.
The project uses photography to tell stories of Erkin's family history. It is a homage to their assimilating and fading lifestyle due to intercultural encounters and time. It is also a tribute to Erkin's father and sister, who still reflect the characteristics of shaman guides of their society. The first shamans were not religious leaders or mystics whose duty was to establish a connection between the spiritual world and the people.
Researcher Stanely Kripner notes that Shamans were probably humanity’s original specialists. They combined the roles of healers, storytellers, weather forecasters, performing artists, ritualists, and magicians.
"In my search for the traces of the hidden shaman in my family, I directly focused on the practical properties of the shamans, such as leadership and healing, excluding all the spiritual states. I believe our family is blessed with consciousness, memory, and wisdom."
The project culminated in an exhibition of a series of portraits of Erkin's father and sister, which highlighted some of their characteristics that link them to Shamanism. The exhibition also included a collection of images and videos that gave a glimpse of the lifestyle of Erkin's family and ancestors through archival images and Erkin's own work.
Biography
Erkin Kalayci is a Melbourne-based photographer who specialises in capturing human connections. With a background in Landscape Architecture and a career in graphic design and human-computer interaction, his passion evolved into a deep commitment to photography. Erkin finds the greatest joy in photographing people, focusing on the relationships between individuals and their environments. Guided by the belief that "to photograph someone is to know them," his work emphasises continuous discovery and understanding, revealing the stories behind the faces he captures.
Erkin won the 2024 Australian Photographic Prize for Student of the Year.