No One Dies At a Gypsy Wedding.

No One Dies At a Gypsy Wedding 2001-2020

Istanbul late summer 2001.
I was walking on the Quay of Kadikoy. Ferries were crossing the Bosporus, the waterway which divides the city between Europe and Asia.
It was busy. Through the stream of the crowds, I heard the sound of someone beating a drum. When I came closer I saw a little boy of about six years of age sitting on the pavement. He held a Darbuka drum between the legs. Before him lay a cardboard box with a few coins in it.
Watching the scene with curiosity, I noticed his father, a big man with a friendly face sitting a few meters behind the little boy.
A little further on I saw a group of girls dressed in vividly colored long skirts. Occasionally they clung to passersby trying to sell them paper tissues.

Simple questions arose : Who are these people? How do they live? What defines their identity? I had certain fantasies and probably some prejudices. I was not aware that many Roma live in Turkey. The Roma, what do I actually know about them?

On that day in Istanbul, I met with Sezgin Vurgun the father and his son Mustafa, the little Darbuka boy.
To learn who they are and how they live the idea came to me to follow the lives of the Roma family Vurgun for an uncertain period.