Mahmut Koyas

Biography:
Mahmut Koyaş was born in 1988 in Adana. He started to take photos after three months of training he received in 2006 at the Association of Amateur Artists of Photography. In 2008 he attained enrolling Okan University on a scholarship. Again at the same year, he ranked the third place in the photo competition organized on the occasion of 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Marmara University. In 2009 he opened his personal exhibition entitled “Çeşitlemeler-Variations” in Okan University. In 2011 he won the honorary prize at the Young Photographers Award Results that was managed by Moon and Stars Project and The American Turkish Society. In 2011 he was entitled to enter in Marmara University Photography Department. In 2015, his project “Sarıkeçililer” was published in Magma Magazine as cover and main theme.

Exhibition: Ovakent
People of Turkistan that ran away from Soviet Union after 2nd World War were settled to Ovakent Town of Hatay in 1982 after dwelling in Afghanistan for a long time.

Though not a long time passed for social change, the immigrant people of Turkistan, during the course of the time, did not undergo a big change at their sociocultural lives, religious attitudes and behaviors. Traditions coming alongside the immigration have even continued in the new generation.

They set a closed social order creating their own neighborhoods in Ovakent, where they were settled. Especially the immigrating generation adopted an introversive attitude and tried to protect themselves against the change.

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