IŞIK GÜNER / ÇAMLIHEMŞİN

Our story with Işık Güner goes back many years, to our childhood days in Çamlıhemşin. After many years, our paths crossed again in the same mountains. Today, we are neighbors in this place that carries so many memories from our childhood.

Işık dağların arasında kendi kurduğu ev-atölyesinde yaşıyor. Bahçesinde dünyanın farklı köşelerinden gelen bitkiler, yerel türler ve çiçekleri buluşturuyor. Bir de küçük bostanı var. Bu sıralar Işığın en büyük heyecanı, bahçesini zaman içerisinde kendi botanik dünyasına dönüştürmek .

Işık lives in the home-studio she built among the mountains. In her garden, she brings together plants from different parts of the world, local species, and flowers. She also has a small vegetable garden. These days, Işık’s biggest excitement is slowly transforming her garden into her own botanical world.

After all these journeys, she always returns to Çamlıhemşin. In the home she built with her own hands, together with her studio and her ever-growing garden, she continues to create. We captured her story on a quiet day spent in her garden.

These days, she is also sharing her knowledge and experience with us in the Honey Museum project that we are dreaming of creating together.

We benefit from her knowledge and experience in our work to make the plant diversity and natural heritage of our valley more visible. While Işık illustrates the plants of Fırtına Valley, she is also recording the botanical memory of this land.