Memory Theatre

(Magyar) Művészkonyha

24. February 2018. – 03. March
MegnyitóOpening: February 23, 2018, 7:00 pm
MegnyitjaRemarks by: Gadó Flóra

The starting point of the exhibition is the artist’s family archive and the descendents’ relationship toward this rich material. The artistic research project Memory Theatre examines how the artist – as the representative of the third generation –  can deal with this topic and what kind of personal approaches she can formulate toward the archival heritage. Judit Flóra Schuller deals with the mechanisms of memory and forgetting, the notions of loss and solitude. Through the artistic analyzation and interpretation of her family heritage the artist creates space for a possible dialogue between generations.

Through this process, as the artist claims, both parties  are going through some kind of transformation: the archive itself is reducing and moving towards a systematic order, while the artist is stepping in the phase of oblivion as she slowly abandons the process of cultivating memory. The other keyword of the exhibition is the notion of absence: this is what explains the collecting attitude of the family that had become even more stronger and conscious due to the effects of the holocaust in the family. What motivates the artist is the unreachable process of completing the void of absence, as she continues the research about her own genealogy and trying to get a closure in the process of bereavement.

The exhibition unravels fragmented micro narratives through the story of the apartment which the artist inherited from her grandfather, Imre Schuller. Through the act of repetition, appropriation and performative reflections, the artist outlines different patterns in dealing with the heritage of the past. Similarly to the act of remembering and forgetting, Memory Theatre cannot exist as an accomplished entity, it is always in transition; an open conversation between time parallels, layers of history and generations.