The history of the forced labour camp in the Badacsony basalt mine is missing from history books, and its documents have disappeared. On the 70th anniversary of the closure of the labour camps, Blinken OSA Archivum’s research unearthed fragmentary sources, interviewing surviving Badacsony basalt miners and members of a new generation committed to uncovering the story.
Our exhibition attempts to reconstruct the workings of the labour camp, its human relations, but also the mechanisms of forgetting and the absence of memory. Péter Szalay’s exhibition design depicts these islands of memory and forgetting, Tamás Zányi’s multi-channel ever-present sound installation evokes acoustic images, Zsuzsa Debre’s documentary film features a witness from the time, and Lenke Szilágyi’s photographs present the visual world that welcomes visitors to the ruins and the abandoned basalt mine today.