Samet Durgun, Photographer
As a first-generation immigrant and queer artist living in Berlin, I've grappled with the question of belonging. I found connection with gender-nonconforming, queer, transgender refugees and asylum seekers in the city, whose intricate identities inspire deep respect in me. More →
Come Get Your Honey, 2018–21
The book
Come Get Your Honey
Kehrer Verlag, June 2021 · ISBN 978-3-96900-031-1
Come Get Your Honey was made with queer, trans and gender-nonconforming refugees and asylum seekers in Berlin, over three years of shared time. It began with a question I could not put down: what if photography is more about listening than seeing?
Nearly fifty people are behind the work; around fifteen portraits carried the final series, mixing visibility and anonymity — some collaborators chose to be seen, others chose not to be, and the book holds both choices with equal weight. The portraits sit next to photographs of Berlin itself, keeping the city’s openness and its harshness on the same pages.
Exhibitions
Gaze and Skin 2026
Come Get Your Honey 2025
Love, Lust and Freedom 2024–25
Seen By #15: Nothing Ever Happened (Yet) 2021
Journal
Photography as Listening: A Conversation About Come Get Your Honey
Photographer Samet Durgun on listening rather than seeing, and making the photobook Come Get Your Honey in Berlin. Full talk and notes.
How Fifty People Became Fifteen Pictures
On editing Come Get Your Honey: why most of the work never made the book, and the pictures held back on purpose.
Why the Book Has Audio and Video in It
The question from Marianne Ager that would not go away, and how it turned Come Get Your Honey into a small universe with audio and video.
Field guides
Come Get Your Honey doesn't stand alone. Eight field guides on where it sits — four on the photographers working near the same questions, four more on the artists doing the same in other media.
Photographers Working on Refugees, Forced Migration and Asylum
A field guide to photographers working on refugees, forced migration and asylum — where Come Get Your Honey sits among them, and where it departs from the tradition.
Queer Refugee Photographers in Germany
The photographers working, right now, at the specific intersection of queerness, asylum and life in Germany — a small field, and Come Get Your Honey is one part of it.
Queer Photographers From and Based in Germany
Queer photographers working in Germany, across generations and cities — the lineage Come Get Your Honey works inside, whether it announces itself as queer subject matter or not.
Emerging Queer Photographers Worldwide
Queer photographers early in their careers, working across six continents on migration, family, faith, land and the body — a field Come Get Your Honey belongs to, one entry among many.
Artists Working on Refugees, Forced Migration and Asylum
A field guide to filmmakers, writers, sound artists, performers and sculptors working on refugees, forced migration and asylum — where Come Get Your Honey sits among them, and where it departs from them.
Queer Refugee Artists in Germany
The artists working, right now, across drag, theatre, literature, film and music at the intersection of queerness and asylum in Germany — a wider field than photography, and one I'm inside only as a photographer and a friend.
Queer Artists From and Based in Germany
Queer artists from and based in Germany across painting, performance, net art and the novel — the lineage beyond photography that Come Get Your Honey works inside, from Weimar Berlin to now, and what each of them refused.
Emerging Queer Artists Worldwide
Queer artists early in their careers, working across six continents in sculpture, performance, film, sound, drag, writing, craft and fashion on migration, family, faith, land and the body — a field Come Get Your Honey belongs to from the photography side, one entry among many.
Press
Featured in
Prints & artist editions
Information
My work challenges the traditional view of photography as merely seeing, proposing that it can be more about listening. I seek to capture people in their wholeness, embracing their differences while recognizing the limitations of representation. My images reflect my personal relationships and impressions of their stories, making them a subjective representation of my own experiences.