FUTURES European Photography Platform & Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center present: ENERGY Redistributing Power and Taming Consumption

Opening: October 13, 7:30 PM CEST
On view: October 15–November 26, 2023
Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center
8 Nagymező Street, 1065 Budapest, Hungary
Monday: Closed
Tuesday–Friday: 1pm–6pm
Saturday–Sunday: 10am–6pm

Artists: Dávid Biró (HU), Umberto Diecinove (IT), Tanja Engelberts (NL), Antonio Guerra (ES), Hien Hoang (VE/DE), Yana Kononova (UA), Marta Pinto Machado (CV/PT) and Yana Wernicke (DE)

ENERGY: Redistributing Power and Taming Consumption is the new exhibition opening at Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest from October 15 to November 26, 2023. It features a group show, an anthology of diverse photography projects focusing on energy, one of the most relevant and complex topics, which everybody has to deal with either as a private or as a public matter. The show comprising over 80 works produced by eight young photographers selected from the FUTURES European Photography Platform’s network, of which Capa Center is the only Hungarian representative in a network of some 20 European partners.

From personal stories to documentary and social approaches, to the exploration of the limits of photography as a medium seeking new forms of narration, each photo series and multi-media installations lined up in the ENERGY: Redistributing Power and Taming Consumption exhibition could stand on its own as a case study, providing a condensed representation of the ideas associated with this multilayered topic. While some projects talk about the destructive forces of energy in warfare or in extractivist society (Tanja Engelberts (NL); Yana Kononova (UA)), others explore existing strategies as possible solutions (Dávid Biró (HU); Umberto Diecinove (IT); Antonio Guerra (ES)), exemplify desirable companionships (Yana Wernicke (DE)) and reflect on healing (Hien Hoang (VE/DE)). Finally, there is a perspective on how the colonial and capitalist structures shaped contemporary cities and how the energy of presence in these spaces could be a form of resistance (Marta Pinto Machado (CV/PT)).

ENERGY: Redistributing Power and Taming Consumption is part of the rich programme of the Annual Event proposed every year by the European FUTURES platform, Capa Center  will in fact be the headquarters of an intense calendar of activities involving not only 100 young photographers and artists and 20 curators from all over Europe, but also international guests such as artists like Zack Denfeld (US/NL) founder of artist-led think tank The Center For Genomic Gastronomy; documentary photographer, National Geographic and Nikon Ambassador, Esther Horvath (HU/US); curator, artist and photography researcher, founder and director of Odesa Photo Days, Kateryna Radchenko (UA); and Krzysztof Candrowicz (PL), curator of CICLO Biennial in Porto, Portugal, who will be tutors of the educational programme reserved for FUTURES artists and protagonists of the events open to the public in Capa Center’s new event hall and different exhibition spaces on both floors. To complete the programme of meetings on photography and the contemporary image, a joint show will be presented at Central and Eastern Europe’s leading international art fair, Art Market Budapest. Finally, this three-day event will focus on the importance of networking in the art field by featuring a special lecture by Júlia Perczel (HU) researcher at the Department of Network and Data Science at Central European University, and in this spirit experimental animated mingling events will happen with the contribution of Seven Trials Theatre Troupe (HU) exploring and offering new possible ways of professional network building over the weekend. Classic and reliable forms of social blending evoking communal energy cannot be left out of the program: warm-up exercises, communal lunch, parties, DJ sets, and music will happen, all under the banner of contemporary photography, visual research, and professional networking.

Exhibition curated by Emese Mucsi (Capa Center), with the support of Ángel Luis González & Julia Gelezova (PhotoIreland); Daria Tuminas (FOTODOK).

EVENT OPEN FOR PUBLIC:
14 OCTOBER FROM 5 PM TO 6 PM: ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

With Kateryna RADCHENKO; Krzysztof CANDROWICZ; Zack DENFELD, Emese MUCSI moderated by Tom VIAENE, editor of Trigger Magazine

‘Energy renewal, energy security, rising/lowering energy demands, energy (in)justice, private and public energy ownership, energy waste, energy transition, nuclear energy, … Energy is on everybody’s minds these days. Different national contexts engage in similar heated public debates, so it seems. That’s of course what we like to do with FUTURES Annual Event and the accompanied traveling exhibition in the first place, to peel off such thick overdetermined concepts like ‘energy’. ‘Energy’ is again a very slippery concept, also in relation to photography’s entanglement. Apart from science, technological advances, and the omnipresence of oil, there’s also a lot of moralism, cultural references and practices, and political conflicts intertwining, that makes energy interestingly ungraspable and fluid.’

Chief editor and coordinator of Trigger magazine published by FOMU – the Museum of Photography, Antwerpen, Tom Viaene will lead a thematic round table discussion on the topic of ENERGY, the focus of this year’s FUTURES Annual Event, of the accompanied exhibition and of the next issue of Trigger Magazine.
https://www.fomu.be/trigger/about-trigger

📍 Capa Center / Event Hall (basement level)

15 OCTOBER FROM 1 PM TO 2 PM
TALK by JULIA PERCZEL Networks researcher  CEU / Department of Network and Data Science

Júlia Perczel is a PhD candidate at the Department of Network and Data Science at CEU. Holding an MA in Art History and in Social and Organizational Psychology, she is interested in integrating qualitative and quantitative methodology as well as incorporating big data analysis while trying to better understand cultural production in the contemporary art world. She is interested in topics related to post-WWII and contemporary art practices as well as in questions related to the sociology of art and culture. In her talk which based on her PhD research, she is focusing on better understanding the ways underlying network structure, positions, and core-periphery power relations influence the ways of incorporation of CEE artists into core art collections and global art canon. Within this framework, she will analyze FUTURES as a networking platform and as a community stimulating self-reflection and self-analysis in the spirit of development for FUTURES. 

📍 Capa Center / Event Hall (basement level)