past – present – reality – fiction

This series was created as part of my diploma work for Master of Photography
in the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest.
The story of the pictures is a personal exploration between past (remembrance,
memory, fiction) and present (remembering, reality, here and now). The pictures
have been shot with a large format camera, onto 6×7 black and white film.
I am connected emotionally to the places I have taken pictures of. The suburbs
of Budapest, where I grew up, appear with a different meaning. The scenes are
not ugly, and not nice either – I wasn’t choosing according to an esthetic point
of view. The country`s dark past lie deeply within the suburban images.
I have chosen black and white because this expresses the conflict of physical
emptiness and emotional tension. There are no colours, just endless black and
a few white lights. A sort of timelessness, eternity. Black strenghtens the questioning
of realtionships. The shift and tilt tecnhique of the camera enabled me
to move away from reality, to transform the scenes into visual memories.
I also presented my work in a book, that gives it a larger perspective, on how
the whole idea of the ’photographic journey of self-exploration’ comes together
with Budapest`s disappearing past and ever-present history.
“Perception is determined by the visual experience of our past. Memory is
closely related to imagination, to the fantasy world that we obtain by combining
together stories from the past. These are mental constructions created by
our mind… “
(Aldous Huxley: The art of seeing, 1942.)