The Parallel State by photographer Guy Martin is a multi-layered project which began life as an examination of the Turkish soap opera and film industry, but evolved over the course of five years into a semi-fictional study of truth, reality and lies in contemporary Turkey. Martin had lived and photographed in the Middle East for most of his career, and moved to Istanbul in 2012. At the time, Turkey was regarded as a nation of wealth and power with a stable, secular democracy; however, this began to change with the rise of Islamic State, presidential elections, the Kurds becoming a credible political force, the refugee crisis, and the failed coup d'état by a section of the armed forces in 2016. In this volatile environment, fake news—before it was known as such—thrived, fuelled by change and instability. Martin was drawn to explore Turkish soap operas, some of the most watched television shows in the world; introduced to a director and given free rein to shoot on set, he recorded the action before, during and after the cameras were rolling. Combining set photography with images of the Gezi Park protests, the aftermath of the failed coup and found images, the book presents an in-depth view of Turkish consciousness.