Pécsi József Photography Grant 2017
Visiting is free of charge
February 13, 2018 – March 5, 2018
Every day 11 am – 7 pm
Closed on public holidays.
Capa Center – Project Room
Curator: Gabriella Csizek
Installation: Foncsorozó Egyesület | Translation: Vera Bakonyi-Tánczos | Proofreading: Vivien Boronyák, Balázs Gáspár | Graphic design, corporate identity: Gabi Halász
The photography grant created for commemorating the photographer, professional writer and photography teacher József Pécsi (1889–1956), was founded by the Minister of Culture and Education in 1991. Its purpose is to help to start the career, creative work, and development of talented photographers working as independent artists, and to provide them with favorable conditions for the creation of high-quality artworks which are modern both in terms of form and content. The series exhibited this year also attest to that the grant recipients have created quality works by employing the diverse possibilities of photography.
On the 25th anniversary of the grant, in 2016, the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center organized the exhibition Pécsi 25, showcasing the works of previous grant recipients. The occasion also brought about the creation of a so far missing online archive for the works created under the aegis of the grant. Besides the showcase exhibition of the authors awarded the grant for a second year in 2017, the Project Room of the Capa Center also displays the works of the first- and third-year grant recipients.
The exhibition is realized in cooperation with Magyar Alkotóművészeti Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft. (MANK [Hungarian Creative Art Public Benefit Non-profit Ltd.]). Established in 2011, MANK is the only nonprofit corporation in the country which is expressly entrusted with the task of supporting fine arts and artists, including the organizing, financial administration, handling and documenting of early career support grants.
Exhibiting artists: Ficsór Zsolt, Gáldi Vinkó Andi, Kállai Márton, Koleszár Adél, Máté Balázs, Németh Sz. Péter, Nyíri Julianna, Rostás Bianka, Schmied Andi, Vékony Dorottya
The photographers who recieved the Pécsi József Photography Grant in 2017:
1st Grant Term
Ficsór Zsolt
Nyíri Julianna
Rostás Bianka
2nd Grant Term
Gáldi Vinkó Andi
Koleszár Adél
Máté Balázs
Németh Sz. Péter
Vékony Dorottya
3rd Grant Term
Kállai Márton
Schmied Andi
Ficsór Zsolt: M3
Ficsór Zsolt: M3 – Cím nélkül (2017) | Zsolt Ficsór: M3 – Untitled (2017)
I started to use the Budapest metro line M3 as a personal playground, hoping to reach a broader, and ultimately a more appropriate discourse about this site, which is surrounded by a multitude of questions and occupying most people’s thoughts living in the Hungarian capital. Consciously processing the stimuli of now being an observer via my presence, I began to feel like a strange outsider, yet I also strove to fully experience each moment. I did not go there to enjoy the functionalities of the subway. I was not there as a passenger; I was not in a hurry; I did not have a destination: I did not use the space but experienced it. I operated like a simple device that makes observations in an unspecified space. My objective was to process the site by collating the various concepts of aesthetics of the different social classes of our time. I strove to reinterpret the beautiful, the kitschy, the ugly, the vulgar, the ordinary, the insignificant, the relevant and irrelevant, and I tried to raise the question of distinguishing between a good and a bad image. Our age is perfect for discussing all of the above as every genre has its place in today’s world.
Nyíri Julianna: Stones
Nyíri Julianna: Kövek (részlet a sorozatból, 2017) | Julianna Nyíri: Stones (from the series, 2017)
The cornerstone of this series is the rock, which is one of the essential building blocks of the Earth, and, in a broader sense, of our world. This natural formation carries the palpable impressions of slow processes and changes taking place over inconceivably long periods of time – the snapshots of past and present occurrences. I am primarily interested in the analysis of these impressions, the presentation of the various occurrences of these rocks, and the structural or formal analogies related to their various manifestations (rock, cliff, hill, and mountain). This project strives to expand the thoughts and associations related to such extremely ordinary things as a stone or a landscape.
Rostás Bianka: Child by Heart
Rostás Bianka: Szív szerinti gyermek (részlet a sorozatból, 2016–2017) | Bianka Rostás: Child by Heart (from the series, 2016–2017)
They say we do not choose our family. But what if we do? What happens to a child, if his parents forsake him for being born with a congenital disorder? What happens when a child with a disability means a fulfilling life and happiness for someone? How does the life-long unconditional bond between mother and child evolve?
Éva Jásper, a 43-year-old single woman, adopted Tamás through a closed adoption. His parents gave up their parental rights because he was born with Down syndrome.
Adopted children are sometimes called children of the heart.
Tamás needed life-saving heart surgery when he was 1.5 years old due to a ventricular septal defect. Following the surgery, complications arose, which resulted in the family returning to the hospital for further months. The doctors gave up on the little boy’s life on more than one occasion. After long months, mother and son could finally start their life together, free from the struggle for life itself.
Gáldi Vinkó Andi: Homesickland
Gáldi Vinkó Andi: Homesickland (részlet a sorozatból, 2016–2017) | Andi Gáldi Vinkó: Homesickland (from the series, 2016–2017)
My series submitted with the working title Homesickland presents the inexplicable peculiarity that Hungary, my homeland, means for me. In recent years, I have spent a lot of time abroad, longing for someplace else, believing that my place and happiness lie somewhere out there. While there are still a lot of things I don’t like about Hungary, something has changed. I have started to look at my environment with a forgiving, strange kind of love. I have stopped having expectations or wanting to attain anything, and I have begun observing my home with the eyes of a tourist. A whole new and enchanted world has opened up to me. Everyday life is now permeated by a sense of peculiar nostalgia. It is as if time had stopped between a dream never to be reached and the remembrances of a past I myself had never experienced. Everything has gravity and significance, while in the meantime it’s all just the same and nothing really matters.
Koleszár Adél: Wounds of Violence
Koleszár Adél: Wounds of Violence, Maria (2018) |Adél Koleszár: Wounds of Violence, Maria (2018)
My work over the past years have focused on human violence, examining how its constant presence transforms the individual, his or her environment, and the social structures. I have mostly continued my work titled New Routes of Faith, and my landscape-based series started last year with the working title Wounds Of Violence.
The landscape-based project was developed with the intention of demonstrating the potential extent and effects of human violence in a symbolic, abstract form by presenting landscapes and urban environments. The sites selected are Central American locations where repressive powers have committed act of mass destruction. This year, my goal was to document even more natural and urban scenes, to include more portraits in the series, to organize the textual and audio materials created during the photography sessions, as well as to experiment with installation techniques.
Máté Balázs: Beyond the Mark
Máté Balázs: Beyond the Mark (részlet a sorozatból, 2017) | Balázs Máté: Beyond the Mark (from the series, 2017)
The encounter and interaction of different cultures is an especially relevant social issue. Due to acceleration in media consumption, we easily form opinions about events and people that are far removed from our lives and experiences. While we can gain seemingly more direct experiences from more and more distant events, we obtain most of our impressions regarding certain ethnic groups and minorities, and the people belonging to them, not from direct empirical encounters but indirectly, via pieces of news, images, and texts. Similar to my earlier works, I once again focus on prejudice and preconceptions and examine how prior knowledge (or the lack thereof) shapes the processes of reception, interpretation, or perception itself.
Németh Sz. Péter: Border-lines
Németh Sz. Péter: Gyál, Határ utca 1., Budapest, Ganzkertváros határán (2017) | Péter Sz. Németh: 1 Határ Street, Gyál, at the border of the Ganzkertváros district of Budapest (2017)
The objective of the project is simple: to completely canvass and document the border-line of Budapest – the imaginary line that separates the capital and the countryside, these two parts of the country that are supposed to be so different from each other. What is there? Is it still Budapest, or already the countryside, or possibly a transitional territory? Does it make sense to differentiate between the “Budapest” and the “countryside” identity, when people living on one side of a road are considered to live in the Hungarian capital, while those on the other side of the road in a rural settlement?
Vékony Dorottya: стан
Vékony Dorottya: стан (részlet a sorozatból, 2017) | Dorottya Vékony: стан (from the series, 2017)
My project focuses on a Central Asian country: Kazakhstan. During the three months I spent in the country, I strove to examine the social and cultural structures and establishments. Kazakhstan is rather different from the other Post-Soviet states both in terms of their geographical location and history. In the past one hundred years the Kazakhs were a minority in their own homeland; they have survived famine, colonization, natural disasters; and, among all these, we are talking about a region that develops at an incredible pace. The change of regime having taken place in 1991, democracy is still ostensible: paranoia, the old habits, corruption, intimidation, and distrust are still palpable. Yet, there is a form of nationalism proliferating here, which is typical of the Post-Soviet states searching for their identities. Sponsors: image printing by LFP, digitization by Tripont.
Kállai Márton: Széplak
Kállai Márton: A vidék természeti adottságai leginkább az állattartásnak kedveznek. A jószág ellátásában rendszerint a gyerekek is a család segítségére vannak (2017) | Márton Kállai: The natural environment of the countryside provides the most favorable conditions for husbandry. The children are usually involved in taking care of the animals (2017)
Visnyeszéplak is a tiny settlement south of Kaposvár, in the woods of the Zselic hills. Due to the collective farming system of the previous regime and other unfavorable influences, it went into almost complete desolation by the end of the 1980s. At the beginning of the 1990s, young people and young families from urban environments started to move into this isolated village. They were mostly attracted by the beautiful natural surroundings, the peaceful lifestyle, and a direct relationship with the land. There are no industrial buildings or roads of high traffic near Visnyeszéplak. Whoever moved here, they left the convenience of their urban lifestyle behind hoping for a nicer, cleaner, simpler, and more natural life. They have found common ground in that the situation today is unsustainable, and a full spiritual renewal is necessary. It is essential for the families who have relocated to live a life of daily devotion, to preserve folk traditions and carry them on, and to protect and help the reproduction of traditional animal and plant species. At present, there are about 170 people living here, with half of the population being children or young people.
Schmied Andi: Private Views
Schmied Andi: Private Views (részlet a sorozatból, 2017) | Andi Schmied: Private Views (from the series, 2017)
Private Views endeavors to uncover the privileged lifestyle and spaces of the elite world. While posing as an apartment hunting Hungarian billionaire, Andi Schmied accessed and documented the views of over thirty of the most exclusive high-rise properties in Manhattan. For the project, she inhabited a fictional persona, Gabriella Schmied (her actual middle name), a mother-of-two with a husband dealing with antiquities, and preparing to move to New York City.
She visited 35 of the most luxurious skyscrapers in Manhattan, each notable for having unique architectural, aesthetic, political or economic qualities. She documented these real estate viewings through photography and video so that by presenting the real estate agents’ particular persuasive strategies as well as the surreal conversation, she could offer a glimpse into this elite world.