Budapest FotóFesztivál blogja

Liz Nielsen: Space Cruiser, 2023, 25,4cm x 33cm, Fujiflex, analog chromogenic photogram, unique

Two internationally well-known photographers, one exhibition. Let's have a look behind the scene, to get to know  more about the way they create art and experience,  and what made them get to where they are currently. We were talking to Liz Nielsen and Dávid Bíró regarding their joint exhibition, JET LAG at Horizont Gallery in Budapest.

Liz, you have a collaboration with galleries in London, North Carolina and New York. What made you want to work with a Hungarian gallery?

Liz: A Hungarian friend of mine who used to work with me at an art gallery in New York would always say that I would love Hungary. She was connected to someone at the Budapest Art Factory, so one day they ended up reaching out to me to do a residency there. I came to visit and stayed for almost two months - and just fell in love with the city. I ended up doing an exhibition with Horizont Gallery. Since then I kept having this itch to come back, so I got invested in that. Budapest has a spot in my heart and there is a piece of me that wants to belong there.

Dávid, you studied at Kaposvár which is not a neighboring city to Budapest. What is your connection to Budapest? What brought you here?

Dávid: I was born in Szentendre. Throughout my childhood I lived close to the capital. Later on I decided that photography was the major I wanted to study at university. I applied to MOME, but I was rejected. That’s why I chose Kaposvár. Kaposvár is a small town, there’s not much to do. But the community was really good. We encouraged each other to work on our concepts. I made some very good friends there who I’m still working with. After my BA I continued my studies at MOME.

Biró Dávid: Jet Lag, 2023, 75cm x 100cm, giclée print, ed 5.

How did this joint exhibition come to pass? What is the idea behind it? 

Dávid: Balázs Arató, the director of Horizont Gallery wanted me to join the gallery, but I was represented by another gallery back then. Time went by and this other gallery closed. That was the moment when Balázs approached me to do an exhibition at their gallery. But I wasn’t ready to go along by myself. He offered me the opportunity to exhibit with Liz. I really loved her work, so there was no question about it.

Liz: I met Dávid in the past and knew his works. So I was like, great! We got into talking and we decided the title of the show, which was Dávid’s idea: JET LAG. I liked JET LAG because a lot of my work comes from the subconscious, and has a surrealistic effect. It’s almost like having a dream. So it’s a discussion with your subconscious. Like what sense of reality we are presenting - surreality or subreality, or another reality, or an in-between reality, or non-reality. We’re taking photography as a medium that traditionally presents records of reality rather than something else. I think our work is creating another discussion that I find quite interesting. 

 What are your methods to overcome those days when it’s difficult to create? 

Liz: I pressure myself. I don’t want to procrastinate, so I just do it. Sometimes you just have to go even if you are not ready. Then something might emerge, or might not - but you have to keep putting in the time, like practicing your musical scales.

Dávid: I usually do a lot of research and brainstorming before starting a project. I work in a studio where I have to build up a three-dimensional maquette of my idea, then light it, etc. I tend to overthink all the ideas and want to make sure I control everything. The reality is that it’s better if you leave some space to experiment. Just get started and in the process it will be revealed if it works or not.

JET LAG exhibition, Horizont Gallery 

Is there a call to action or call to emotion of your works?

Liz: One thing I want is for people to connect with it from their own personal vision. My intention is to engage someone’s imagination where they see and discover something in the work for themselves. And for that discovery to bring them some sort of spark to their brain. Perhaps joy or maybe even a creative breakthrough - so it’s like a live dreaming space. I want people to have their minds engaged in ideas, in the unexpected - something they wouldn’t necessarily know how to name as a subject.

Dávid: I work with the ideas and problems of technology and how we relate to technology. I try to include some kind of virtual reality aesthetic in my photographs. You see something in that photograph which is not connected to reality. My purpose is to make people engage with this idea, I want them to think critically about this technology and equipment we use day by day - and what is going to be its result and effect in our society. To create confusion and highlight the transformation in our society. How we think about our surroundings that are already affected by technology.

What are your future plans regarding your art?

Dávid: I’m going to work with a Michelin-star restaurant in Budapest. They want me to create photographs of their food - we’ll make a book out of it. I find it thrilling because I have to create artworks in a way, but it’ll be representing the idea of how they approach and represent food, how they develop the recipes etc.
Liz: I’ve got a group exhibition coming up in upstate New York. Its topic is belonging to a place and it is represented through abstracted landscapes. I have another upcoming exhibition in North Carolina in January. It’s about love, and it’s also connected to landscape. It will have painterly backgrounds inside the photograms. I’m also doing a public art piece which is creating a stained glass window for a chapel. 

I’ve heard this saying that as children we act out the role that we’ll be doing when we grow up. What was this for you and how does it relate to your current life?

Dávid: I was really interested in technology. Being a youngster in the ‘90s, it was exhilarating to see how technology evolves. Day by day there was new technology available. It was exciting to witness all these things unfold in front of my eyes. I realized I love creating things with my creativity with the help of a computer. That was the time I started to work with digital photography. After years of experimenting I re-discovered this interest of mine in technology - and that has kept me going ever since.

Liz: When I was little I couldn’t sleep very well. So I would lay in my bed and come up with all these inventions - I guess I wanted to be an inventor. Which I suppose I am in a way now. I would come up with inventions to make life easier - e.g. a pen that would never run out of ink. Just little things. I think the way I connect now probably is through the innovative, inventor type of thought I had then.

                                                                                                        Edit Trunkó

Jet Lag exhibition is on view till 14 June, 2023