The first generation of women from Turkey in the Netherlands

From the late 1960s onwards, the first women from Turkey came to the Netherlands to build a new life here. What were those lives like? We know very little about it. The exhibition 'If only you knew' and the publication of the same name by photographer and artist Çiğdem Yüksel, tell the stories of 22 of these women. 

Authentic and personal approach
Çiğdem Yüksel is known for her personal involvement and her innovative approach to social themes. Her work is characterized by the strong bond she builds with the people she portrays, capturing their stories in an authentic and powerful way. With this first major solo exhibition, Yüksel highlights the lives and stories of the first generation of women from Turkey in the Netherlands, a group that has often remained underexposed in Dutch history.

Çiğdem Yüksel: “I realized how much I miss images that do justice to the story of the first generation of women from Turkey, like my grandmother. An archive that is representative, where my generation and the generations after me can go to see who these women were and to understand where our story in the Netherlands began. If we don’t expand our visual heritage soon, this history will remain invisible. These women are now elderly; time is running out.”

22 unique stories
The exhibition consists of 22 unique stories, accompanied by photos from family albums, (video) interviews and new portraits that Yüksel made in her mobile photo studio. They talk about the pain of migration, homesickness, getting lost and finding your way. Work, take care of the children, learn the language. Love and unhappy marriages. Being restricted as a woman and emancipation. Their contribution to the Dutch economy as factory workers or cleaners, and their struggle for freedom and equal rights. Their stories are diverse, layered, ambiguous, as any human experience is. A central part of the exhibition is a video installation in which Yüksel intimately reflects on the memories and thoughts of her deceased grandmother.

Tribute to Bertien van Manen
The exhibition also pays tribute to the recently deceased documentary photographer Bertien van Manen (1935 – 2024). Yüksel portrayed several women that Van Manen captured in the 1970s for her book Women as Guests (Vrouwen te Gast). One of the images from this book, Strike of Turkish women at the Ten Dam chicken slaughterhouse, Almelo (1978), is part of the permanent Gallery of Honour of Dutch fhotography in the National Museum of Photography. (Vrouwen te Gast).One of the images from this book, Strike of Turkish women at the Ten Dam chicken slaughterhouse, Almelo (1978), is part of the permanent Gallery of Honour of Dutch fhotography in the National Museum of Photography.

Publication
The publication of the same name, produced by the journalistic production agency Prospektor and published by nai010 publishers, will be released simultaneously with the opening of the exhibition.