Anna Tihanyi

Couple in Bed

“Isn’t this shock I act to myself just a stage? After all, what is a play but an effort of the inevitable present to experience the past or the future? The stage only makes this constant confusion of time and space visible if I make myself disappear from my own present as an experiment! If my imagination places it on a stage.What a play! But it’s only a play!” Péter Nádas: Berlin Grey (1973)

Winner of LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards 2016, Hungarian photographer Anna Tihanyi has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her series Berlin Bhf (bahnhof) was inspired by the experiences, visions, stories and expectations of Hungarian authors.”

The Boy

“Everything has a sense, a meaning. Everything is a part of something, fits into something, but it seems as though this somehow doesn’t apply to Berlin, to West Berlin more precisely. This is why I mostly stayed home, curled up, seeing the spy and the enemy in everybody…This was even worse than loneliness…a vacuum, a hole that cannot be filled, a throbbing, aching wound. Despite all this, I long for it now, because back then, M was still with me and we played with marbles in the hall of our apartment.“ Imre Oravecz: Battle in Berlin (1988)

“I fragmented the works of these authors, creating narratives reacting to each of them. The concept is entirely rooted in intimate issues of my personal life, through which I could emphasize Berlin being a transitory state, as a habitat of passengers, temporary home for these authors. Even though these writings are inspirational, text and image work together as a puzzle here. The scenes take places in different interiors of a fictive Berlin, showing feelings and relations through these moments of transition. With the narrative capacity of photography I wanted to emphasize that the image is frozen in time, and there is no before or after told. Only this moment exists in the present with the permanent feeling of outcast, rootlessness and the desire of being integrated.”

In Vain

“If the most important thing is freedom—the devil wants to take it from someone by binding them to bad habits. These habits then drag the soul to ignorance and an animalistic existence. She went to the window and stared at the dark, empty streets through the curtain. She slowly understood that she was lost. She had fallen in love with that man.” Ernő Szív: The Black Berlin Notebook

“These images also articulate my sense of self as a woman, specifically through problematic multiple self-definitions: mother, daughter, lover, etc. I’m interested in exploring femininity and the female identity. My work transports the viewer into a feminine surrealist wonderland, a fairytale-like environment that explores the in-between, the tension that lies within both the physical and psychological spaces of the female identity.”

Still Life

“You got a present, when you found no joy in it anymore. You arrived late because you were born early. You were raised in a bubble. Sleepless, you are tossing and turning in your bed, you accept that your breathing has become heavy, you get up, fumbling around in the dark, you think about close friends who have now passed. You have a glass of sugary water and reach out for the apple on your bedside table. You would certainly find your way around better if you weren’t surrounded by the material world. Reality prevents you from monitoring your fantasies. Maybe not having a country makes you the prisoner of some imaginary homeland.” László Végel: Nach Berlin (1989)

“I’m interested in the dialogue between photography and literature. Each photo has a literary quote, and these texts are inspirational and give a general atmosphere. They show feelings and relationships through these moments of transition. I wanted to emphasize the commonality of rootlessness and alienation, the permanent feeling of being an outcast, and the desire to be integrated. Berlin Bhf talks about history and memories as fictional places that only exist for a moment. It shows misplaced and unsettling situations where people are uprooted from their origins, loved ones, and center of gravity.”

Crystal Night

“The object of rage usually remains indefinite. One can only decipher the trail of this anger. Rain was dripping from the alder: a tap has been opened, and the tubes fixed on the branches started spraying water. The man, with the hammer held against his chest, was soaked under the tree on the sunny square, his face indifferent.” Zsolt Láng: The Mystery (2004)

“My photographic work evolves into contemporary tales about human subconscious, reflecting surrealist qualities while playing with reality. I love the reconstructing capacity of photography that by transforming elements from the existing world it shows us a parallel universe, and leads back to something faithful at the same time. The intellectual and artistic ground of the ’50s and ’60s is a great source of inspiration for my art. I feel connected to this era, as the complexity experienced in art, when artists began to examine critically the disconnection of the image from reality. Even the esthetical appearance of this era, literature through movies, has the biggest impact on my visual thinking and on my life as a woman as well.”

Trapped

“Perhaps it doesn’t qualify as literary exaggeration to say that the room was full of the shadowy figures of wild visions. One always carries his paranoia with him wherever he goes. We don’t really want to let this noise close to us, just like we refuse to acknowledge the idea of a serious sickness. Outside? The Outside has its own Inside too” György Konrád: Remembrance of West Berlin (1987)

Expecting

“I just put down my luggage in the room that I had rented, and I was ready to go and discover the city. The war had not only touched Berlin’s body, it had also left deep wounds on its spirit. Something had been interrupted here in this city at the end of the ’30s; just like in Sleeping Beauty’s castle, time had stopped. Since then, Berlin has found itself in a different time.” Földényi F. László : Berlin Mass (1978)

Currywurst

The starting point has to be this interaction, the gentle interplay between being touched and untouchable, of being familiar and a stranger. It is present but abstract at the same time. Being home, no matter how relative it is, is always routine and repetitive.” Lajos Parti Nagy: The Red Lion (2002)