Samet DurgunPhotographer
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A person lies in soft light wearing a feather boa — the cover photograph of Come Get Your Honey.

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 →

hi@sametdurgun.com @hi.sametdurgun

Come Get Your Honey, 2018–21

A person in a black mesh top stands against a dark wall flecked with light, arms folded across their chest.
A pale wooden back door in a Berlin courtyard, with plants growing up around the threshold.
A hand rests on the back of a red dress, close in and cropped tight.
A person in a blue belly-dance costume sits in half-light, hands lifted to their hair.
A person reclines by a window, holding a patterned garment above their head.
Figures silhouetted in blue fog under a single bright light at night.
A person in a blue dress stands at a kitchen sink, dark hair falling over their shoulder.
A bar window lit red at night, graffiti spread across the facade around it.
A person with pink hair sits in a kitchen with orange curtains and a laid table.
A person sits in a kitchen doorway beside a shisha pipe, white shirt open, a broom leaning in the light.
A person in a red sequinned dress stands in a doorway, seen from behind.
A portrait in a gold bridal headdress and layered jewellery, eyes meeting the camera.
A person stands in dense green undergrowth, their face hidden by the leaves.
A hand reaches from a window through net curtains and leaves.
A person lies in soft light wearing a feather boa — the cover photograph of Come Get Your Honey.
One person rests a hand over another’s eye, rings catching the light.
Laundry hangs on lines strung across a bright room with white brick walls.
A person in a pink headscarf looks out through a curtained window.
A portrait of a person in a red corset against a red wall.
A figure in a blue gown stands in a basement doorway crowned by a candelabra.
A person stands in a lit basement doorway covered in stickers.
A figure stands out of focus in a Berlin street, low sun catching the buildings behind.
The runway markings at Tempelhof field, a kite far in the distance.
A skater crosses Tempelhof field in a yellow jacket under heavy clouds.
Long dark hair extensions laid out on a white sheet.
A necklace spelling “mother” rests against a plaid shirt, close in.
A canal running through summer greenery in Berlin.
A person sits on a balcony in golden evening light, the city soft beyond the netting.
A person in costume sits on a sofa beneath a candelabra headdress.
Two people in evening gowns sit on a white sofa, drinks on the table before them.
A pair of studded ankle boots on a dark floor.
Two hands rest together on a bed in low afternoon light.
A person kneels in sunlight, dark hair thrown upward mid-motion.
A Berlin high-rise facade at dusk, red balconies running down one side.
A person in a backwards cap smokes against a concrete wall.

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The book

The book Come Get Your Honey resting on a striped blanket.

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.

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Exhibitions

Exhibition poster for Gaze and Skin: three photographs over a grey ground, the artists Sarah Ungan, Samet Durgun and Ceren Saner named at left, opening 13 May 2026 at LANGER. Space for Photography.

Gaze and Skin 2026

Group exhibition · LANGER Space for Photography, Mannheim, Germany
Poster: LANGER. Space for Photography, with the Kulturamt der Stadt Mannheim
Installation view: prints from Come Get Your Honey mounted on a graffiti-covered wall, beside a wall panel reading Samet Durgun.

Come Get Your Honey 2025

Solo exhibition · Fotografiska Berlin — Emerging Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Photo: Ivan Erofeev / @ivaan_erofeev
Installation view: a cluster of framed photographs from Come Get Your Honey hung on a white gallery wall.

Love, Lust and Freedom 2024–25

Group exhibition · Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense, Denmark
Photo: David Stjernholm / @david_stjernholm
Installation view: photographs hung across a stairwell wall at the Museum für Fotografie.

Seen By #15: Nothing Ever Happened (Yet) 2021

Group exhibition · Museum für Fotografie, Berlin, Germany

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Journal

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Press

Featured in

Fotografiska: Solo exhibition — Emerging Berlin, Fotografiska Berlin, 2025LANGER. Space for Photography: Group exhibition — Gaze and Skin, 2026Kunstmuseum Brandts: Exhibited — Love, Lust and Freedom, 2024–25Kehrer Verlag: Publisher — Come Get Your Honey, 2021Deichtorhallen Hamburg: Essay — #photography2050, HALLE4Kunstbibliothek — Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: Co-organiser — Seen By #15, Museum für Fotografie, 2021Universität der Künste Berlin: Common Ground mentorship, 2020/21 · co-operating on Seen By #15Deutsche Fotografische Akademie: Reverse Portfolio Walk, in conversation with Karina-Sirkku KurzDer Greif: Artist featureLeica Fotografie International: Book of the Month, by Ulrich Rüter, 2021GQ Germany: Feature by Verena Aichinger, 2021i-D: Interview by Marco Frattaruolo, i-D Italy, 2021KALTBLUT: Emerging Berlin interview, 2025Vakuum Magazine: Tenderness as Survival, by Thinley Wingen, 2025WhiteWall: Emerging Berlin feature, 2025 (German)Impressions Gallery: Photobook Fair talk, Bradford, 2021IFA Berlin: Speaker, 4–8 September 2026Dazed: Love, Lust and Freedom — gallery, with two works reproduced, 2024Container Love: A Must-Visit Queer Exhibition, by Javier Zamora-Kalazich, 2024Out & About: Fotografiets fortællinger i Odense, 2024 (Danish)e-flux: Exhibition announcement — Love, Lust and Freedom, 2024Camera Austria International: Issue 154/2021, presented by Maren Lübbke-Tidow

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Prints & artist editions

Two artist editions of Come Get Your Honey exist, each in an edition of 30: the book with a signed, numbered archival pigment print. Edition 1 carries “Emrah’s Kitchen”; Edition 2 carries “Anniversary of the House of Royals” — both images unique to the editions.

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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.

hi@sametdurgun.com @hi.sametdurgun

Information →

Index