May the 1st, 1977, or the Taksim Square Massacre, was a crucial event in the history of modern Turkey. 500.000 people gathered in Taksim Square in Istanbul to celebrate the Labor Day. At the end of the speech given by the president of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions, gunshots were heard. People panicked, and as they tried to run away, panzers got in their way. 36 people died, and 136 got injured either by being squeezed, getting shot or swallowed by the panzers. May the 1st, 1977, marks an important date in the path to 1980 coup d’etat, which changed Turkish political and social life dramatically. The event was a traumatic one, and continued to be a controversial issue in the 2000s. The photographs of this incident show many people squeezed where body parts meshed with each other. Among them, I chose one photograph and disintegrate this imagery in an attempt to free people from the mass.
