Life jackets save people. But never have they been worn like this, by thousands of ordinary people as tokens of desperate hope, the way soldiers wear armor into combat. In this instance, the no-man’s-land is an often stormy, dangerous crossing for a better life.

Life, in the form of tailored outer jackets, many with misspelled brand names, arrives daily on the sidewalks of the overflowing streets of Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey. In their unequivocal shade of orange, payloads of tragedy, they’re a fitting economic bounty for street-roaming vendors. These opportunists, seeking to make a living off the calamity assailing humanity that we bear witness to today, vend them like vegetable sellers.

At a crossroad of hyper-commerce, bathed in dripping-neon