Murat Yazar

August 1, 2026

Please welcome our new NCU member.

Murat Yazar was born in 1978 in the city of Urfa, eastern Turkey.
Based in Palermo, Italy.

We are delighted to welcome the NCU team’s new, 28th full member of Noga.
Murat Yazar is a renowned Kurdish documentary photographer whose large-scale photographic projects have received widespread international recognition: they have been awarded the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant, supported by the Pulitzer Centre, and his iconic images have been published in National Geographic and The New York Times.
Murat is a man of incredible stamina: for his ‘Out of Eden Walk’ project, he walked 1,200 km from Anatolia to Georgia! His profound visual explorations focus on the themes of human memory, migration, the search for national identity, and how artificial state borders divide the fates of entire peoples. Murat explores this world through the lens of humanism and believes that documentary photography has the power to unite people, breaking down all barriers.

Shadows of Kurdistan

Yazar’s first series on NCU, based on the book of the same name, ‘Shadows of Kurdistan’, is a long-term documentary photography project that explores the life, culture and identity of the Kurdish people, divided by national borders. The author says: ‘We live on our own land like shadows, without colour’, which reflects the complex situation and the erosion of the people’s cultural identity following the division of the region between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Murat documents everyday life, landscapes and portraits of ordinary people and nomads across different parts of historic Kurdistan to preserve the visual history and culture of his people, and to show their daily lives beyond the news stories of wars and conflicts.