Current Project:
into the frameless distance – city of (no) memory

The project, ‘into the frameless distance – city of (no) memory’ requires a suspension of disbelief to imagine traces of the past imbued in photographs recording memories and significant events. The project is informed by my father’s escape from Hungary (1948) and my search across cities (Budapest, Bratislava) and landscapes (Bratislava/Austria border) to find evidence of his past. The project is two-fold with ‘into the frameless distance’ focused on the border crossings by river and land (swimming across the Danube & walking across the Bratislava/Austria border); while ‘city of (no) memory’ focuses on my father’s city, Budapest which I return to in search of ‘ghosts’ of the past holding residues of his presence and traces of traumatic historic events.

‘city of (no) memory’ includes a series of monumental ‘ghost house’ photographs, taking their cue from Daido Moriyama’s ‘Town of Memory, Osaka Japan 1982’ where he captures a diffuse image of his birth place. ‘city of (no) memory’ also includes the mixed media installation ‘a moveable feast of memory & (no) memory’ which includes photographs, archival documents, maps and a photograph I took of the house at my father’s ‘last address’ in Budapest, listed in his Belgian police refugee application.

‘into the frameless distance’ includes a preoccupation with one image, taken at the Bratislava/Austria border, singled out as marking the moment of transition when an ‘inhabitant’ becomes an ‘exile’. It is the focus of the installation piece and photobook ‘everything we touch burns aways’ (from Anne Michaels’ poem). It was filmed onto Super8 film, with the filmstrips printed up as photographs in the darkroom; and the image also occurs as a central motif in a 16mm film. Riverbanks at the Danube border crossing between Komárom (Hungary) and Komárno (Slovakia), and along the Bratislava/Austria border were also photographed, creating points of contact where I retraced my father’s footsteps & imagined him surveying the landscape to plan an escape route. All photographs were hand-printed by the artist in the darkroom.

The project was exhibited simultaneously across 3 Portsmouth galleries in September 2024: Jack House Gallery, Art Space Portsmouth and Aspex Gallery Studio. Research and exhibitions were supported by Arts University Bournemouth, Aspex Gallery, Pompey Darkroom.

All Exhibition & Events information can be found here.

Related essays
The Incomplete Reimagining of Image Matter by Jelena Stojković
The suggestion of an echo traced by the touch of a capturing device by Ricardo Reverón Blanco