Photonic Moments 2014: Anna Tihanyi
© Anna Tihanyi
About This Exhibition: Berlin bhf.
My photographic work evolves into contemporary tales about the human consciousness, reflecting surrealist qualities, and playing with reality. I create narratives that are concentrated into one single frame, the staged photograph. Each of my pictures is a contemporary little tale about characters, emotions, surrealism, and reality.
I am interested in photography because of its narrative capacity, that the image is frozen in time, and there is no before or after told. I love the reconstructing capacity of photography that by transforming elements from the existing world it shows us a parallel universe, and that it leads back to something faithful at the same time.
Staging scenes plays an important role within my practice. The intellectual and artistic ground of the '50s and '60s in the United States is a great source of inspiration for my art. I feel connected to this era, as the complexity of the changes experienced in art, society and the life of the individuals was mostly generated by it, artists began to examine critically the disconnection of the image from reality. Even the esthetical appearance of this era, advertisements through movies, has the biggest impact on my visual thinking and on my life as a woman as well.
I'm interested in exploring femininity and the female identity. Adopting a deceptively childlike charm, my work transports the viewer into a feminine surrealist wonderland, a fairytale-like environment that explores the "in-between", the tension that lies both within the physical and psychological space of the female identity.
I believe that photography is not only connected to visual arts but more to fine art, literature, or psychology. I strongly believe that imagination is not the opposite of reality, but in fact they can't exist without each other.
Berlin bhf. (bahnhof) is a staged photography series that was inspired by Hungarian authors' Berlin experiences. I am founding my concepts on intimate issues of my personal life, through which I could emphasize Berlin being a transitory state, as a habitat of the passengers, the temporary home for these authors.
The scenes take place in different interiors, and show feelings and relations through the transition. I’m interested in the dialogue between photography and texts, since Berlin plays not only a self-reflection but a dialogue in these pieces as well. Through my visually coherent series I wanted to emphasize the common aspect of rootlessness and alienation, the permanent feeling of outcast and the desire of being integrated.
Portfolio: Berlin bhf
Biography
I received my MA diploma from communication at the JATE University with the thesis themed in photography “Stills in Motion” (2006). Enrolled to Fotografus photography school (2002-2006) where I majored in experimental photography, and had my first solo exhibition (2010). Twice received a grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Hungary - NKA (2009, 2013) and became a member of the Studio of Young Hungarian Art Photographers (FFS).
I got selected to Kaunas Photo Festival in Lithuania and became finalist for Celeste Prize Award (2011). My work got selected as a permanent installation for the 2012 Youth Olympic Village in Innsbruck, Austria, and for the Athens Photo Festival as a finalist (2012). Winning the NARS residency 2012, and the E.On Creative Award 2013 allowed me to work for four months in New York, and two months in Berlin last year.
With the series Berlin bhf. I have won the 3rd prize at the Photonic Moments European Month of Photography Festival in Ljubljana, Honorable Mention at the Moscow International Foto Awards, and the Lucie Award Scholarship by the American Photographic Artists and Lucie Foundation for my portfolio (2014). I currently live and work in Budapest, Hungary.
Website:
www.begumchat.com
All material, text and images, are under © of the photographer and VASA.