#postsoviet generation

64 x 80 cm, c-print, alu-dibond The pair of images designated as BUD-OSL (2012) and OSL-BUD (2012) is about a topic concerning the 1980s Generation – migration and emigration.  Those emigrating would leave their homeland for an indefinite period of time in many of the cases, and their return would be subject to what they would experience abroad, what chances would emerge in a foreign land.  My installation focuses on that indecision as to time, on the infinite variety of possibilities as well as on the re-assessment of “here-at-home/back-home”.

Enikő Várai: ”La mission est sacrée”* (2012) *”The mission is sacred” - an Article of the Code of Honour of French Foreign Legion ”I want to be a soldier” – when will one choose this sentence to be his career motto?  What is the difference between joining the military today and the former mandatory military service?  In my photo sequence, I was seeking the factors, the individual life conditions and the inner drives that might motivate a young person to join the military as a profession.  The subjects I portrayed here were born in the 1980s. Indeed, this theme is one concerning me closely as my little brother is military, presently on a mission overseas.  No surprise that, following his decision, so many unanswered questions were raised in the family.  We can only make guesses as to his motivations, without knowing whether getting closer to or falling away from the truth.  In the interviews and photo sessions that I had with the subjects, I focused on what made them choose a military career.  

Csaba Vágó – Katalin Vágó-Lévai: Playground Love (dedicated to B. Vágó) Becoming a parent, your own childhood memories, thought to have been long forgotten, emerge.  This experience inspired the photo sequence entitled “Playground Love”. Playground is a most essential scene for the child’s socialization.  Out of nursery or primary school, or during vacations, it is on the playground that the children, “released” from the blocks of houses where they live, develop their social skills and behavioural patterns, and vent their emotions.  This is not unlike it was in the 1980s when we were children. Today those old playgrounds with their iron and wooden constructions wait deserted for their doomsday.  The toy constructions that are now doty or sunk into the ground make you feel like you saw archaeological sites with finds. The intention was to make a photo documentation of these playgrounds before they fully vanish.

At No. 48. Eötvös Street in the 12. district of Budapest, Hungary, there’s to be found a villa, an iconic building from the era of the Communist dictatorship, where the contemporary secret service [ÁVH] detained suspects, including former Communist prominent László Rajk, of an infamous conceptual trial, the “Rajk trial”.  The decayed house is now in the possession of the local government, with tenants living in the ground floor and first floor apartments.  The building’s several rooms and compartments have new functions today.

Kata Somogyvári: TINYVISION (noun) the phenomenon in which our experiences that we lived through or that we conceived to be during the time we used to be tiny, break into small pieces, and then, by multiplying their own tiny details, they integrate into whole visions. [Latin:] (tinyexperience)provision

Ildikó Péter: Landscapes As a visual legacy of the so-called “regime change” [the cessation of the Communist rule] in Hungary in 1990, abandoned buildings, sites left fallow, assets forsaken comprise a memento – most typically seen in the country-side yet sometimes being a very characteristic part of the urban scene in the capital city as well. In my work, it was more and more inspiring to see these open, empty, forgotten landscapes that would tell a story of our past.  We are the last generation from before the “regime change”, in the aftermath still nurturing the old times’ visual experiences. My work is a documentation of those areas, lands and sites that used to be utilised but are now doomed to decay – such as a closed up beer factory, an old row of garages, a tramway stop, the abandoned public spa, a construction site left fallow, a muddy road leading into nowhere, the embankment of a closed and removed railway track….