Futures Talents 2020
The Capa Center selected five young photographers, who can represent the Hungarian photography and the Capa Center in October, 2020 at the UNSEEN Photo Festival in Amsterdam.
The Futures talents of Capa Center in 2020
István Bielik
István Bielik (1985) is a freelance photographer based in Budapest. He works with various Hungarian newspapers and online magazines. As a photographer, he sees it as his mission to use the instruments of visual storytelling to present the situation of the downtrodden and those who live as minorities on the margins of society, who cannot make themselves heard by the majority. In so doing, he shines a light on injustices in the world. His work has been recognized through a variety of prestigious professional awards and achievements: In 2014 he was awarded the Grand Prize of the 32nd Hungarian Press Photo Competition for a photo series about the civil war in Syria. In 2015 he covered the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the impact of the refugee crisis across Europe. In the same year he was selected to participate in the Joop Swart Masterclass organized by the World Press Photo Organization. In 2017 he took part in the workshop of Magnum Photos as a recipient of the Robert Capa Centre’s scholarship. In 2018 he was the recipient of the Károly Hemző prize, one of the leading Hungarian photography awards, in recognition of his photo series which drew on a sophisticated form language to capture social phenomena in a way that reflects the photographer’s deep social sensitivity. In the same year, he was also selected to join the Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass. He was awarded the Pécsi József Photography Grant in 2015, 2018 and 2019 for his project entitled The Last Storytellers. In his work thus far, he has tended to focus on the presentation of contemporary societal problems and conflicts, as well as their ramifications. But presenting the victims of long-gone repressive regimes, his The Last Storytellers diverges from this focus. Pursuing a similar theme, his The Darkest Hour series shows that in the same way that the wounds carried by the survivors of labor camps continue to mark the victims to this very day, the underlying experiences have also left an enduring imprint on the physical landscape and the collective memory of humanity.
András Ladocsi
András Ladocsi’s (b. 1992) desire for seeking and finding the truth comes from the subject he observes. His works reassure and delight the viewer while they are also equally capable of making them uncomfortable. In his photos, naturalism and realism are greatly anesthetized and organized into tight compositions. The works vibrate between an intimate and a more distanced approach. The artist’s intent to systematize and to create is unavoidably present in the pictures, but his neutral use of space and backgrounds being completely free from identity, provide adequate territory for the observer’s personal interpretation. His art also exhibits noticeable cohesion. This does not sprout from a labored stylistic mannerism but instead from the explicit and successful display of a distinct vision.
Balázs Máté
Balázs Máté (b. 1988) is a Budapest-based photographer specialized in portrait and fashion photography. Alongside his commission work, he runs his personal projects as a continual inquiry into and experimentation with visual perception and experience. His work has been shown in various galleries and festivals including The Saatchi Gallery, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Dubai Design Days, Vienna Photobook Fair, Backlight Photo Festival and Budapest Art Market. His photo series were featured in several magazines, such as Wallpaper Magazine, The Room Magazine, IGNANT, Self Publish Be Happy, Thisispaper, U+MAG, Waterfall Magazine, and Der Greif.
Dániel Szalai
Daniel Szalai (b. 1991) is a Hungarian artist, working on large-scale, photography-based projects. In his latest works, he focuses on human-animal relations, reflecting on societal, political and economic anomalies. Szalai mixes different media in his artistic practice and also works with spatial installations. Besides studying photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Szalai also holds a bachelor’s degree in Art and Design Theory. Daniel is a member of the Studio of Young Photographers, Hungary. He lives and works in Budapest.
Dorottya Vékony
Dorottya Vékony (b. 1985) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Budapest, Hungary. Her main field of interest is examining and creating fictional or real communities, through which she aims to understand humanity’s deepest and most fundamental desires. Will humans ever find a form of settlement that satisfies these desires? Along existing and fictional concourses, she offers alternatives to how we can reinterpret the notion of a community: let it be a micro-community (such as a relationship) or a concourse at a much larger scale. The unconcealed purpose of these experimental groups is to find functioning systems that can be utilized in practice. Dorottya determines the composition, the form and the purposes of each community through particular network models and structures. Her fundamental medium is photography that she often combines with other disciplines, such as objects, photobooks or video.
Capa Center and Futures
Since 2017, Capa Center is the Hungarian member of the European platform of photography Futures, alongside 11 other partner organizations. Futures organizes a series of events across Europe within each of its member countries. The aim of the platform is to pool the resources and talent program of leading photography institutions across Europe in order to increase the capacity, mobility, and visibility of its selected artists. All participating members of the platform put forward every year 5 artists to be promoted nationally, and that alongside all the other selected artists gather at the main Futures event at Unseen Amsterdam. It is there where they enjoy a series of professional development events conceived to further their careers and promote their work. The artists are also promoted online, in print, participate in awards, and enjoy a profile page on the Futures website. You can visit these at futures-photography.com/artists
Aside from the 5 artists announced above, the Capa Center has already put forward 10 artists: Dávid Bíró, Szilvia Bolla, Máté Dobokay, Márton Kállai, Éva Szombat, Anna Ádám, Krystyna Bilak, Kata Geibl, Olga Kocsi and Adél Koleszár.
Futures Photography Platform is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and the Capa Center is the Hungarian partner of the platform.
The current members of the platform are British Journal of Photography (UK), CAMERA (IT), Hyères Festival (FR), FOMU (BE), Fotofestiwal Lodz (PL), PHotoESPAÑA (ES), PhotoIreland (IR), Photo Romania Festival (RO), Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (HU), The Calvert Journal (UK), and Triennial of Photography Hamburg (DE).
Futures is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
http://www.futures-photography.com
