The outside of education: Rethinking photography education in Turkey through Cansu Yıldıran’s feminist perspective

Feminist photography in Turkey operates at the intersection of artistic expression and political resistance, navigating a landscape shaped by patriarchal norms, authoritarian governance and a rigid educational infrastructure. This article explores how such visual practices challenge the dominant photographic education system in Turkey – one rooted in technocratic modernism that privileges technical mastery over critical, embodied and inclusive approaches to image-making. The work of emerging photographer Cansu Yıldıran, whose practice is shaped by feminist and queer sensibilities, enables an analysis of alternative photographic aesthetics and methods which suggest modes of resistance. In voicing personal and collective forms of marginalization in this context, Yıldıran’s photographs implicitly critique its conventions of photography education. This, I argue, offers a counter-model that emphasizes performativity, vulnerability and lived experience and opens a critical space that invites more inclusive pedagogical possibilities.