We are Jean-Marc Caimi and Valentina Piccinni, a photography duo based in Rome, working internationally. We have been collaborating for several years for documentary and more personal projects.

With the book Güle Güle (goodbye in Turkish) we'll take you on a surprising journey through the immense city of Istanbul, rapidly changing, bursting of energy and contrasts.

Photographs are the result of our multiple relations with people and places, a fascinating humanity and visually striking and unexpected situations and scenarios.

Gentrification, the marginalization of the poorer classes, the increasing discrimination of homosexuality, the massive migratory influx of Syrian refugees and the Kurdish community issue are just some of the realities behind the subjects portrayed.

The project is mainly organized in diptychs, with a constant dialogue between the images. Reality is deconstructed and reconstructed, favouring a free interpretation.

Photographs have never been altered or retouched to enhance what we believe being immediacy and straightforwardness, coherent with the approach we had while doing this work.

The Güle Güle project was presented this year as a dummy-book and received multiple awards:

• Shortlisted at LUMA Rencontres dummy book Award in Arles

• Special Mention at Kassel Photobook Award

• Shortlisted at Photoboox Awards - Photolux

• Winner at Sony World Photography Award in the discovery category

• Special Mention at Premio Marco Bastianelli

• Winner at the Gibellina Photo Road

• Finalist at the Voies Off Screening Nights

• Finalist at Warsaw Photo Days

It will be also featured at the upcoming Mannheim Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie with the exhibition of a selection of diptychs printed in large format. The exhibition curated by David Campany is titled "When images Collide" and is held at the Ailhelm-Hack Museum.

GÜLE GÜLE