Female fighters of Kurdistan become creative calling for Montrealer

Zayn Akyol lived near the Iraq-Iran border to capture portraits of female Kurdish fighters, producinga series of arresting imagesthat were quietlyunveiled last week in Montreal's Mile End neighbourhood.

Twenty photos are part of the Rojek, One Day exhibition, but the venue, co-working space Espace Mile End, only has room to display seven.

The show's vernissage was on a record-cold day,so the slimmed-down exhibition was greeted by a similarly slimmed-down crowd.

But Akyoldidn't mind.

She's a filmmaker and makes it clear she doesn't identify as a photographer. She was simplyexcited to be offered the spaceand attend her firstvernissage.

In order to take the photos, Akyol lived with female members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the QandilMountains, where the PKK has itsheadquarters.

The PKKis an outlawed rebel group fighting for an independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey.Akyol also spent time in Kurdish strongholds in Makhmourand Kirkukin northern Iraq.

Whatever she lacks in technical knowledge of photography, she makes up for withher natural connection to her subjects.

Akyol fled Turkey as a child, where she says her family suffered persecution for being Kurdish.

The owner of Espace Mile End, lise Lafontaine, said she thought it was important to support Akyol and give her a place to show her work as a photographer.

"Sheseemed to draw a portrait of women whose organization we're ignoring," Lafontaine said. "All communities or organizations can support culture in their own way."

Exploring the subject on screen

Many people who saw Akyol posting her photos on social media thought the images were stills from her documentary,Gulstan, Land of Roses.

The film was released in 2016 and explores the lives and politics of female PKKfighters. The group is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish (and Canadian) government.

Her work with the PKKhas made it difficult for her to consider returning to the country where she was born.

"There is a huge war against the PKK,"said Akyol, who still holds Turkish citizenship. "So just having a movie about them, [considering] the censorship inTurkey, I wouldn't go to Turkey."

• Female guerrilla fighters battle ISIS in documentary 'Gulstan, Land of Roses'

Gulstanwasshown around the world, receiving 80 award nominations, including from the Montreal International Documentary Festivaland Gala QubecCinma.

To Canadians, the images in the film and the photography exhibition may look the same, but they were taken of different subjects, and in different areas.

A sniper in the mountains finishing her shift;a checkpoint;a woman combing her hair allare among the simple, seemingly mundane moments captured in both projects.

Many of these women have opted to fight, leaving their families forever, as opposed to marriage."Married women are dedicated to slavery, they are never happy," says one woman in Gulstan.

Half the women survived

After living with the fighters for her documentary, Akyolhad to learn to let go and move on.

A year after filming, she tried to follow up with some of the women she felt closest with.

"I lived with them, I was so attached to them," she said.

But after finding out one of the main characters in her film was dead, she decided she didn't want to know who among the others had survived. She heard only halfdid.

The upcoming documentary will follow a Kurdish commander who is considered a radical feminist, fighting not only to take back northern Syria from ISIS, but to foster feminist ideals and direct democracy in the area.

"People are not used to it, it's another extreme way of thinking," Akyol said. "It will be very interesting for me to film that."

The commander has already agreed to take part in the documentary and Akyol has secured funding for the project. She expects to film over two or three months, but for safety reasons, can't say exactly when.

Rojek, One Day until Feb. 25, 2019, at Espace Mile End, 368 Fairmount Avenue.