Mania is a common inner response to the outside world, a meditative self-healing process
responding to current social, political and individual life situations.
In the exhibition titled MANIA. Quiet Strategies, the artists Emese Benczúr, Mariann Imre, Kamilla Szíj, Henrietta Szira and Hajnalka Tarr present several of their new and old works, which offer a novel perspective and set of artistic tools of mania. In their lives and work, mania has by now become a conscious standpoint for these artists. It is a creative strategy for survival against the world. Action saturated with mania leaves time for analysis and building self-defence reflexes.
One of the building blocks of mania is the contrast between the outside world and the artistic process: confronting the immediacy of a world of instant, uncritical responses with attentive, inward-looking observership, thus creating an inner space. This inner space is the place where one can slow down and contemplate by retreating from the realm of unsophisticated like-dislike responses. In this inner space each movement is accentuated; a positive feedback; a testimonial: it must be continued.
The self reflective works of Benczúr, Imre, Szíj, Szira and Tarr share the same, increasingly difficult to implement future vision. They point to a growing need for slower, more reflective, activities that allow for increased intent, engagement, quietness and reflection.
The exhibition is the first stopover of a research-based and ambitious community project that invites the residents of Debrecen to co-create content. The entire project process will be documented. The results will be presented in MODEM in 2020.
See the CALL here
Exhibiting artists: Emese Benczúr, Mariann Imre, Kamilla Szíj, Henrietta Szira and Hajnalka Tarr
Curator and Project Manager: Andrea Simon
