Tamas Dezso, Hungary

Here Anywhere

The map of Hungary is spotted with capsules of time. At the time of the democratic transition twenty years ago, the changing country simply forgot about some places: streets, blocks of flats, empty sites and whole districts became inclusions in themselves, in which a kind of anachronistic, diffident attitude, so characteristically Eastern-European, can be discovered. Places, which seem to have become unities with other parts of the city, but their co-existence is only spatial. Places, which fall apart in a time of their own, and the elements are either reoccupied by nature or exploited by forthcoming generations. Instead of the inhabitants, who have never really been able to integrate with society, soon we will find only their traces slowly disappearing in time.

When observing these mini-universes, my intention is not the immortalization of wholeness. I rather want to capture the essence of this world by turning some arbitrarily chosen details into icons of a disappearing form of existence. My series begun in 2009 examines the temporary period and symbolic places of the post-communist era, which due to disinterest or rashness, is slowly dwindling away, becoming a pile of silent pictures, and gradually disappearing. But at the moment, they are still here.

Here Anywhere.