Hayal & Hakikat: A Handbook of Forgiveness & A Handbook of Punishment

Abdul Hamid II utilised photography as a tool for documenting the modernisation of the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 20th Century. A photography studio was built inside the Yıldız Palace, and albums reproduced and sent across the world as a testament to the progress of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid II himself rarely left Istanbul but commissioned photographs so he could become acquainted with his own country, otherwise invisible to his eye.

Amongst other things, Abdul Hamid II was obsessed with crime fiction and in the 25th year of his reign, he ordered all murder convicts to be photographed with their hands visible, in preparation for a planned amnesty dependent on the length of their thumb joints. They are presented in the book in categories – those chained with iron bracelets and those without. Cemre Yeşil Gönenli has cropped out the faces of the subjects so their emotional state is ambiguous.

Hayal & Hakikat (translated as 'Dream & Fact'), by Cemre Yeşil Gönenli, takes the form of two booklets ⁠— A Handbook of Forgiveness & A Handbook of Punishment ⁠— which can be viewed side by side. The 'Dream' of the title refers to the inmates' desire for release and the 'Fact,' their actual circumstances. The fate of the individual prisoners remains unknown as there is no record of the verdict of Abdul Hamid II after viewing the hands awaiting forgiveness.

The book is a result of the workshop 'Interpreting the Encyclopedia of Istanbul with Photographs' organised by Geniş Açı Project Office and SALT in May 2019. Cemre Yeşil Gönenli found the story of this archive of crime photographs in this unfinished encyclopedia by Reşat Ekrem Koçu. She then went on to investigate the images preserved in Istanbul University's Library Collection of Rare Books within the albums of The Yıldız Palace Photography Collection.

Hayal & Hakikat is dedicated to those in contemporary times who are arbitrarily detained.