FUTURES talents 2023

The Capa Center selected five young photographers, who can represent the Hungarian photography and the Capa Center in the FUTURES – European Photography Platform in 2023.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Futures is a platform focused on amplifying emerging talents in photography in Europe. The FUTURES Photography Platform has been granted Creative Europe funding to extend its programme until 2024. In the coming years, FUTURES will launch and promote a plurality of activities aimed at driving innovation, inclusivity and sustainability.

The current members of the platform are CAMERA (IT), Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie (FR), Ci.CLO (PT), Copenhagen Photo Festival (DK), Der Greif (DE), FOMU (BE), FOTODOK (NL), Fotogalleriet (NO), Fotofestiwal Lodz (PL), Fotograf 07 (CZ), ISSP (LV), Organ Vida (CR), PHotoESPAÑA (ES), PhotoIreland (IR), Photo Romania Festival (RO), Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre (HU), Triennial of Photography Hamburg (DE), and Void (GR).

The FUTURES talents of Capa Center in 2023

Richárd Kiss | kissrichard.com

Richard Kiss (1994) studied photography BA at the Metropolitan University Budapest, currently he is a master student of photography at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences. As our society and visual culture is changing rapidly, Kiss is using the means of new media to grasp the essence of the present’s saturated age. His main focus is to explore the changes triggered by the internet and its effect on contemporary art. The accessibility of photography resulted in a flood of visual information online and an inconceivable amount of data. In his works, Kiss regularly strips away the original meaning of photos, transforming them into brand new artworks that can only be perceived on a different scale. His work is heavily based on creating specific algorithms that gather the desired data, which then can be turned into a form of interpretation. As Jean Baudrillard argues in The Transparency of Evil, every act requires to be photographed, to be filmed or recorded, only to be a part of our collective memory and virtual eternity. Kiss tricks this artificial mnemotechnic by questioning the relationship between the spectator and artwork, the reason behind images, thus making the act of photography a subject of reflection. The displayed works aim to change our perspective radically by forcing us to face the myriads of images that are no longer recognisable in their original form, but generate something new, unique and unexpected. 

“Richárd Kiss approaches the world and the photographs that seek to represent it with a highly analytical vision. Photography is, of course, an inherently analytical activity, since the photographer does not fill a blank canvas with arbitrary content but chooses the most exciting from an almost infinite variety of sights, however Kiss does not search for the larger context through his own images, but by analysing the relationships between millions of images on the Internet, by appropriating the photos. What is the relationship between the creation of the photographs circulating on the Internet and the object they depict (does it make sense to take the two-millionth photo of the Eiffel Tower in Paris?); to what extent is the meaning of the images distorted by the change in the original context (was a satellite photo taken yesterday or 70 years ago, which gives us a sinister feeling?)? Kiss pulls the rug out from under the heaps of images of the online photo services we use intuitively on a daily basis.”

István Virágvölgyi
artistic director, Capa Center

Mari Ornella | ornellmari

Ornella Mari (1996) is a Belgian-born Hungarian-ltalian photographer based in Budapest, who graduated in Sociology at ELTE. She started photography in 2017 to explore her identity and relationship with femininity and womanhood. Her work mainly focuses on young women grappling with societal expectations and deals with themes such as trauma, emotions, gender equality, and unrealistic female expectations.

“In Mari Ornella’s photos, control and loss of control appear with equal emphasis; although her pictures are staged, they still offer an insight into the moments of disintegration when everything is falling apart. Behind the slightly rolled up eyes, the half-drunk grimaces in the morning and the looks of the beautiful, young faces, something from the seemingly inescapable and insurmountable darkness rises again and again. Her latest series, Wanna Be My Lover, deals with the search for female identity and the issues of women’s self-definition by men. The project originates from personal experiences and traumas, Mari’s focus is on her relationship with men and his own father, the characteristics of borderline personality disorder and the consequences of uncontrollable emotional states.”

Borbála Szalai
director, Trafó Gallery, Budapest

Zsuzsi Simon | zsuzsisimon.hu

Zsuzsi Simon (1988) is an artist living and working in Budapest, Hungary. She graduated from the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2015. Her research interests include feminism, body image and activism. The way women think about the world plays a very important role in her art, and she is particularly interested in the image of the female body and the expectations that come with it; how we feel in our bodies, what external influences we are exposed to. She uses humor, provocation, irony or even blatant honesty to break down taboos. In her projects she usually works together with several women in order to get more attention to a certain topic and to stand up for each other. Currently in addition to women’s topics he has started to deal with men’s studies. She explores masculinity, male behavior, stereotypes and the role of the male muse from a female perspective. Her work is often conceptual, with photography as the most common medium. She is a member of Secondary Archive, which brings together women artists from Central and Eastern Europe on a large platform for greater visibility. As a photographer and videographer she has been working for various independent and institutional contemporary art projects. 

“Zsuzsi Simon graduated from the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2015. Already during her university years, her series focused on feminism and social issues affecting women. From this period, her series Until the Change of Government I will not give birth, has generated a significant media response, transcending the boundaries of the contemporary art field. As part of the project, many women wore the sign “Until the Change of Government I will NOT give birth” on their bellies, reflecting the sexist nature of political discourse. Simon continued to work consistently with a strong emphasis on women in her post-graduate projects, focusing more and more on the female body and the socially constructed expectations and stereotypes associated with it. These themes are reflected in the Bravo, Posterzine series, where she reveals the parts of her own body she is not happy with, in the Ugly or Beauty series she has created various body hair ornaments, and in the site-specific work Fortis Feminae, she explores the cultural history of female body hair growth. Her latest project, Alexandru, focuses, unusually, on a man, yet the theme of this multifaceted series remains the body through which gender roles and stereotypes are explored. There are few artists in the Hungarian photography scene who have been so focused on an important social issue for so long as Zsuzsi Simon.”

Tamás Don
chief curator, MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen

Balázs Szigligeti | szigligetiphotography

Balázs Szigligeti (1999) started to work with photography in 2014. After graduating from OktOpus Multimedia Institute he was accepted to MOME, from where he graduated in 2021. Balázs is pushing the boudaries of reality and fantasy. He takes down the limits between reality and dreamworld, art photography and fashion photography . His artworks celebrate the human body and its plasticity , queer culture, his hedonistic friends, and life.

“In the artistic practice of photographer Balázs Szigligeti the use of light and color appears as a prominent tool and field of experimentation. In his works, he sometimes brings into play the explosive, overdriven, shiny-glazed visual characteristics of camp aesthetics, where he “cools down” the loudness of camp, exploiting the possibilities of black-and-white image creation. The central motif of his 2021 work One Day We Will All Celebrate Together is the cake, the symbol of childish abandon, love, joie de vivre, his conceptual cake compositions are complemented by portraits challenging the dominant beauty ideals. Szigligeti presents communities selected intuitively and with special sensitivity for social issues in his signature style (Laciék, 2019; Golden Lips, 2019; Csodaszaras [The Miraculous Deer], ongoing). He has been working in the fashion industry since the age of sixteen, in his autonomous projects he creates a special tension between the topic and the way it is displayed, which also evokes the visual aesthetics in advertising. In his series, Golden Lips he confronts the viewer with the rarely discussed issue of aging and the cult of youth that defines the beauty industry by photographing his mother’s friends.”

Emese Mucsi
curator, Capa Center

Balázs Turós | balazsturos.com

Balázs Turós was born in Budapest in 1990. After graduation, he was admitted to the Department of Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. After finishing his BA degree, he moved to England. He was introduced to FotoNow, a community interest company in Plymouth, which he worked with for two years. Once back in Budapest, he enrolled in a Master of Photography course at MOME. After earning his master’s degree, he was awarded the József Pécsi Fellowship in 2018, 2019, and 2020. In 2021 he was the Fellowship of the Robert Capa Photography Grand Prize. In 2022 he was selected into the Open Program of Fotofestiwal Lodz. 

“Balázs Turós has been organizing his life around photography and image-making since the age of fourteen, even when he is not making concrete, tangible works but living a time of experience. He subtly weaves the events of life into his current works and courageously assumes his deep involvement, showing his emotional reactions. At the beginning of his career, he focused on social problems, but it soon became clear to him that he was more interested in the passage of time, the changes that come with it and the anxiety of the finite nature of life. His work is based on the exploration of themes that emerge from his personal development and his life’s journey, and the sensitive expression of these themes in a series of photographs. In his recently completed series – although with the possibility of a sequel – he shows the changes over time that multiply roles within the family: we become mothers and fathers, but we also remain children of our parents or become uncles. We have chosen him as a FUTURES Talent for his high-quality work and consistently performed projects, so that he has the opportunity to continue his development and to be more visible on the international scene. Balázs Turós graduated from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design with a bachelor degree in Photography, followed by a short break to pursue a Master’s degree. He has been awarded the József Pécsi Photography Scholarship three times.”

Gabriella Csizek
curator of the permanent Capa-exhibition, Capa Center