Shepherds and the Slaughterhouse
Description
A photobook by photographer Simon Chang documents his encounters in Kurdistan both with photographs and in writing.
This autonomous region spanning across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran was subjected to violence from Islamic radical groups which was documented by many photographers, but Chang was more interested in the less obvious wounds of the nation, ones concealed even inside it: a psychiatric hospital in Erbil and a slaughterhouse in the Simele mountains.
The book has three layers wrapped between letterpressed cardboard covers with a rubber band: a book of photos, a poster, and a book of essays with inserted reproductions of the items, collected during Chang’s travels. This is a metaphor for Kurdistan itself – each individual layer is a simple object, but together they form a complex whole, which enables the reader to immerse themselves in the stories of the Kurdish people and catch a glimpse of their extraordinary lives.
