After working on environmental stories along the river Brahmaputra in India I realised how urgent it is to address similar issues in my homeland. I have started to develop a new project in Hungary in which the focus is still on water, or the lack of it, but this time viewed from a familiar point of view. My approach is to explore the fragile relationship between humans and water at a more metaphorical level through my human encounters and memories, but still focusing on how climate change and human negligence affect our most precious resource - water and the quality of life that surrounds it
I grew up next to the second biggest river of Hungary, the Tisza. My entire childhood was inevitably shaped by the presence of the river and the thermal springs around my hometown, Szentes. This region was one of the most rich and vivid livelihoods in Hungary before the river regulations took place in the 19th century. The developments (human intervention) around water ecosystem, and the threats of recent climate issues has been constantly impacting the environment, causing huge droughts, extreme weather events and limiting our direct access to living waters.
Drainage at River Körös.
Szarvas, Hungary, 2022
No special research is necessary to see that Hungary is currently on the verge of drying out. Hungary has been experiencing its driest seven months in 120 years, with almost half of the average rainfall missing. The water crisis of the 21st century will therefore be manifested in the increasing extremes of the water cycle, but mostly in further drying changing the living conditions of Hungarians.
My main motivation is to photograph the current relationship between human and water, reveal the country's critical points, concentrate on countryside people whose livelihood and place of residence also heavily depend on the presence of water. With the ‘Blue Memoir’, my intention is to create a series of photographs, an intuitive, multilayered visual essay including maps, archives and interviews that highlight the extent of climate change in Central Europe from a different perspective.
Youngsters playing in the middle of Danube at extremely low water level.
Budapest, Hungary, 2022
Thermal Bath
Szentes, Hungary, 2022
Corn field
Szentes, Hungary, 2022
László Kulcsár preparing food for his horses. Fields were not mowable this year due to early drought.
Kunszentmiklós, Hungary 2022
Watering a tobacco field.
Kiskunmajsa, Hungary, 2022
Cooling down a horse in the heatwave.
Jásszentlászló, Hungary, 2022
A half-burnt tree remained from the biggest forest fire of late summer.
Táborfalva, Hungary, 2022
Shepherd watching his animals at a small artificial pond. Kiskunmajsa, Hungary, 2022
Bathers in an abandoned thermal spring
Törtel, Hungary, 2022
A shepherd fixing a broken well.
Mórahalom, Hungary 2022
Watering a bio farm.
Csengele, Hungary, 2022
Abandoned tomato field.
Szentes, Hungary, 2022
Tamás, a livestock farmer is planting tree.
Csólyospálos, Hungary, 2022
Children jumping from a riverbed dredge at Danube.
Nagymaros, Hungary, 2022
Kayak left behind on the floodplain of Tisza.
Szentes, Hungary, 2022
Broken car on sunflower field
Martfű, Hungary, 2022
Bay ladies at the lake
Balatongyörök, Hungary, 2022
Water tank
Szentes, Hungary, 2022
Bather with a mermaid tattoo.
Törtel, Hungary, 2022
“I am near Törtel in the middle of nowhere. I sit in a healing thermal water spring, on the site of an abandoned oil well where water has burst up instead of black gold in the 60s, much to the delight of locals. A hunched back man arrives on his bicycle, not pedalling, just pushing. It's my fourth time here, he comes every day. He climbs into the steaming water with difficulty, washing himself slowly, the others continue to talk with stoic calm. It's not time to take a photo yet, but I want to get to know him. A symbols of irreversibility.”
Aftermath of a reed fire
Szeged, Hungary, 2022