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Please introduce yourself, describe what your artistic practice is focused on at the moment?

I am a visual artist from Budapest, the capital of Hungary, a country in Eastern-Europe, which a decade ago I would insist on locating to Central Europe, but due to our political landscape, and my introduction to the world systems theory, I would now just call a semi-peripheral country in Europe, with a GDP of about 150% of the world average.

My practice is based on research; however, being very visual, the outcome always has to do with my obsession with materials, colours, and painting. I am currently researching geoegineering, the speculative technological solutions for the climate and ecological crisis, and the masculine aesthetics underlying ecomodernism.

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What are your real and desired conditions for art production?

I am very lucky right now, because I have several funded art & research projects running in parallel, which means that I will have financial stability for 2023. Although, I have had many ups and downs since I graduated in 2010 – times of pure survival interchanged with superbusy periods with no financial benefits; at the moment I am very lucky to live the desired conditions in reality, mainly due to the fact that I have just recently won the TÓTalJOY Prize.

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What are your experiences of collaborative art and educational practices so far?

I am part of the xtro realm artist group, with whom, since 2017, I have organized a multitude of programs (reading circles, exhibitions, field trips, lectures, talks, discussions…) dealing with the socio-political-ecological theories that critique the anthropocentrism of contemporary thinking, in order to provide access to the discourses of climate change and the Capitalocene, all in the spirit of knowledge-sharing and transdisciplinarity.

Besides, I was also a volunteer board member of the Studio of Young Artists Association between 2018-2021, where we managed the headquarters including a non-profit gallery, a community space, studios, and approx. 100 active members. It is a semi-institution where young artists can land for a few years after graduating, to use it as an experimental space for different purposes. We faced very serious financial difficulties during this time, so instead of pushing only purely artistic activities, our program revolved around creating a new discourse on art labour, organizing the membership into a community, and finding new funding programs.

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How do these times of economic, social and ecological crises affect your art practice?

I am an artist who thinks in very materialistic terms; in other words, I am watching the world collapse in slow motion. This has substantial effects on my practice; indeed, this is the major focus. I am trying to gather knowledge and information from different fields: sociology, political economy, science, philosophy, and distil this through my work. It is very hard to continue without experiencing symptoms of burnout, which I sometimes do, as I cannot see myself outside of the all-encompassing picture of a total decline.

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Name about 10 words/associations/notions that first come to your mind when you think of engaged eco-social participatory practices?

Co-ops, solidarity economy, types of basic incomes, energy communities, kaláka (kind of economy of favours, from socialism), Lumbung, xtro realm, Balatorium/Szabadon Balaton projects (art/science local projects), Patagonia, Gólya (co-op bar and community space in Budapest).

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