These images explore a ‘utopic’ village built for teaching maths

In 2007, Ali Nesin set out to solve a mathematics problem by building a village.

Nesin, a Turkish mathematician, had noticed that even students who came to his Istanbul Bilgi University classroom from Turkey’s most elite schools were struggling with maths. Instead of thinking critically, they were memorising formulas and approaching their education with a troubling passivity, Nesin concluded. He decided to do something about it, eventually getting a literal village – the Nesin Mathematics Village, in western Turkey – off the ground.

Photographer Piero Castellano recently captured Nesin teaching there. In the above photograph, Nesin’s eyes are fixed on a blackboard set against a tree, some leafy vines, a stone floor and a stone wall. Castellano says that the tree, the vines and the stones are crucial to Nesin’s vision. He wanted the village to be in a secluded location, where students could immerse themselves in maths and communal living and learn better by being constrained less.

There are no exams here, but everyone participates in chores.

“The place is kind of utopic; it looks like a separate world,” says Castellano.

In 2018, Nesin won the Leelavati Prize, given by the International Mathematical Union. His subsequent talk recounted some of his favourite village moments. All were about how happy it made him to see students finally think.