Furkan Temir Tells Stories of War and Resilience

The photographer Furkan Temir was born in the Turkish province of Sivas, once an important provincial capital for the Ottomans and now home to the historic architecture and relics of many past empires. In recent years, it has also played host to a growing number of Syrian refugees who have been resettled in the country. 2011 marked the beginning of the civil war in Syria, which was ignited by the wider wave of Arab Spring uprisings, initially led by Arab youth who were hungry for political reforms and greater freedoms. For thirteen years, until last December, the Syrian civil war continued to rage on, devastating livelihoods, breaking up families, and dispossessing millions of Syrians, many of whom had no choice but to flee from the horrors of a war of which they wanted no part.

Over seven million Syrians have fled their homeland since the war began, with an almost equivalent number internally displaced. Turkey, just across the border, hosts almost half of Syrian refugees globally. “I was born in a confusing political situation—with Syria and the war in Iraq, I found myself in the middle of everything,” he reflects on how the conflicts that surrounded him during his childhood have pulled him even closer.

After completing high school in 2012, Temir’s curiosity to truly understand what was raging just next door led him to board a bus and travel over three hundred kilometers to reach the Turkish-Syrian border, where he stayed for two weeks, documenting not only the tragedies of war but also the resoluteness of the human spirit. “My subject was always the human being. I spent years and years trying to understand stories from different perspectives,” he explains. “I wanted to try and bear witness, as much as I can.”

On the video call, he directs my attention to an image he captured of a young Kurdish boy with his face covered. Temir explains that while he could hear the bullets from a war that raged five hundred meters away as he clicked his shutter, the image was actually about triumph and celebration, more specifically Nowruz, a celebration that marks the first day of spring and symbolizes renewal, rebirth, and the rekindling of life after winter. While Nowruz marks the Persian New Year, it is also celebrated by Kurdish minority communities in both Syria and Turkey. The celebration is marked with bonfires (and bonfire jumping), public gatherings, and the preparation of festive food. “The celebrations are so important to me because as a journalist, we explain the sadness a lot, but the happiness happens at the same place too,” Temir says. Here, the smoke billowing in the background was actually ignited by Nawruz celebrations rather than the explosions of war.

Still, there is plenty of sadness and destruction depicted in Temir’s photographs, as there is no escape from the tragedies of a war that affects women, children, and those stuck in the crossfire. In one image, a Syrian woman covers her face in agony as she learns that her family couldn’t make it across the border. In another, a concerned woman in a hijab takes a phone call in front of the remains of a debilitated border town in Turkey. “Phone calls are always emotional and hard to explain to the outside world,” Temir says. “Most of the time, when you are out of the country and away from your family, you get the bad news over the phone.”

Temir, whose photographs have been published in the New York Times, Time, Stern, Paris Match, and The Guardian, knows this pain well. After the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey in 2023, Temir bid farewell to his homeland and moved to New York. Despite witnessing and documenting war and dispossession just next door, it was the loss of the livelihoods of some of his own family members that drove him to seek a new beginning for himself elsewhere.

When I ask Temir what compelled him to document the war in Syria and its spillover into Turkey, he reflects: “That story was a story about my land too. One way or another, I was going to be a part of that war. Not as a fighter, but you are still a part of it and it affects your psychology.” He adds, “At some point, all the conflicts and wars have the same sadness—whether it is Syria, Ukraine, or Palestine.”

Read this story and many more in print by ordering our eighth issue here.