Werehyena

CREATIVE DIRECTION & FASHION KEMAL YJLMAZ
PRODUCTION CEREN SONMEZ
PHOTOGRAPHY ALI ATA
MODELS KUBRA UZUN, ECE BICAK, BETUL EKSI, BEGUM YAVUZ
STORY WRITING ALEX SANTANA
RETOUCH LOUIE COBO
MAKE-UP MUSTAFA ISIK
HAIR HARUN ATES
STYLING & SET ASSISTANT TUSIDI
COORDINATION & BACKSTAGE SUPPORT FIRAT BAYRAK, KEREM KAYA
SPECIAL THANKS NEW MODELS ISTANBUL

The spotted hyena species native to sub-Saharan Africa is matriarchal and known for their maniacal laughter, they can be solitary figures but hunt in groups, and they are strong and adept at hunting prey. Their powerful jaws and tough digestive systems allow them to ingest their entire prey, including bones, teeth, and horns. Nocturnal and fast, they act like wind in the night, unpredictable, passing by, their laughter echoing both here and in the distance. 

A collective voice, or a thought pattern shared by a group, has the capacity to echo and bubble into other spheres. Inspired by the texture of spotted hyena fur, fluid patterns ripple on a second lycra skin. This new skin is pliable and permeable. It drips and billows, implying a sheddable quality. Long braids mimic these strands, but swing fiercely like lethal weapons.

A shotgun is another tool, an object that holds memories in its chambers, of collective fear, wrath, and self-defense. In Anatolia, where agricultural families harvest ancient wild wheat, traditional tools like sickles and wooden winnowing claws are essential components of a collective identity in unity with the landscape. A sickle is, afterall, another whisper in the night. 

How do we honor the selves we know ourselves to be, beyond the confines of the bodies and contexts we have been born into? 

There is a right and necessity to be our true selves, a right that is constantly being contested and negotiated –– in need of defense. In this vision of the future, which is also one that harkens to an ancestral past, womxn members of a matriarchal and self-defending collective leap into action. Unbound from the fixed markers of a former heteropatriarchal order, transfeminist and eco-feminist futures spiral endlessly, like effervescent constellations of light. In this self-examination, there is also an indictment of the lasting harms of patriarchal imperialism and its effects on the natural environment. 

In this new territory, perhaps there is de-acceleration, but there is a rejuvenated engagement with tools and skills. It is a new world order in which all aspects of nature must be in harmonious symphony for the collective survival of all species, a world in which interspecies dialogue is indispensable and revealing of truths we have ignored or forgotten.