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    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive" | DER GREIF
    From the series "Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive"
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    Jinê Land - Where women keep the earth alive

    Artist Feature of Matteo Trevisan

    In Rojava, in north-eastern Syria, a decade-long revolution has placed women at its centre. Driven by a passion for freedom, it treats the liberation of women and the liberation of the land as inseparable – two sides of the same coin – and is rooted in direct democracy and self-governance.

    This commitment is evident throughout the region, from municipalities and civil councils to agricultural cooperatives, health centres and self-defence units, all of which are built through a system of co-leadership between women and men. It is evident in reforestation projects and communal gardens, in the fight for water sovereignty and in the unglamorous daily work of creating an alternative to previous systems.

    However, a passion this intense, once it becomes devotion to a cause larger than oneself, also carries risk. Following the civil conflict of early 2026 and the ongoing peace and integration process with the new Damascus government, this revolution, and the women who have dedicated years, and sometimes their lives, to it, is facing its most uncertain moment yet. The commitment that established the all-female military units, such as the Yekîneyên Parastina Jin (YPJ), Kurdish for “Women's Protection Units”, and the co-leadership system itself is now being put to the test in the face of political compromise. What happens when such absolute devotion collides with the need to negotiate, integrate and survive?

    I photographed as an invited guest, welcomed into communities to which I had no connection, during two visits: the first in autumn 2025 and the second in June 2026. Living within these communities over time allowed me to witness a form of fervour that is neither private nor performative: a passion for freedom that has reshaped how an entire society organises itself and which now stands on the brink of transformation.

    Matteo Trevisan took part in Hamburg Portfolio Review with our Managing Editor Ilaria Sponda.

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    Matteo Trevisan

    Matteo Trevisan is an Italian photographer and filmmaker based in Padua. He is represented by Contrasto. His long-term documentary work uses an anthropological lens to explore social and ecological struggles, with a particular focus on contested territories and grassroots movements. In 2026, he won the Sony World Photography Award for his documentation of the women-led ecological movement in Rojava, north-east Syria. In 2024, he published his debut photobook, “I Guardiani della Montagna – We Are Still Dreaming” (Danilo Montanari Editore).