János Szabó Collects Stories of People Living Along a Hungarian River Full of Childhood Memories
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Published16 Jan 2023
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Author
- Topics Documentary
If the river is the most frequently used - and abused - metaphor for the passing of time, this project instead depicts a world that does not seem to have changed much since the artist's childhood.
“Sonkád, Kölcse, Túristvándi, Nagyar, small villages in Bereg county, tiny ageing islands. Walking through the villages, you watch the people, the houses, and you get the feeling that you see the end of something.” – quote from a local guidebook.
Öreg-Túr flows through Bereg county, in the northeastern part of Hungary. The river travels through every village of my childhood and youth. My memories of the river entail not only spaces, but faces, lives, and a whole set of values with them. The photo series examines the relationship in its current-day state between the river – alongside its surroundings – and the people living around it.
The nature that encloses these local areas may mean work, a source of income, recreation, fun and hardship at the same time. I collected personal stories and situations that symbolises the relationship between locals and nature. I wanted to draw a broader picture from these stories, one that not only speaks of a regular sense of life around the river, but also shows the wider socio-historical context of Öreg-Túr’s environment.
Furthermore, in the pictures, I wanted to put my own experiences, memories and amateur interest in the environment and wildlife on display.
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Words and pictures by János R. Szabó
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János R. Szabó (1992) was born and raised in Kömörő, a small village in the northeastern part of Hungary. This particular locale plays a major role in his inspiration as an artist. He graduated in photography at MOME in 2018. He is invested in sociophoto, the depiction of people while researching the difference between staged and documentary photography. Follow him on Instagram and PhMuseum.
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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PhMuseum curators.
