Rita Süveges, winner of the 2023 TÓTalJOY Award, has long been exploring the cultural, technological and ethical aspects of the ecological crisis. Her exhibition explores the lessons of past efforts to change the weather and climate.
Human communities have tried to influence weather processes in a positive way through a variety of means. Magic, witchcraft and folk customs have been used to protect against hail and drought. The new world view of modernity was to conquer nature, and with it began the scientific chapter of weather manipulation.
Today, the local reality of weather phenomena has been superseded by the threat of a climate crisis. Weather and climate are mutually exclusive: weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given place and time, while climate is the repetition of weather elements over time. Can the lessons of the fight against weather be scaled up to the global scale of processes affecting the planet?
Süveges’ installation evokes the intangible aesthetics of technological progress, shimmering metallically and in a state of permanent disappearance. Meanwhile, transporting our imagination into the clouds, he flashes in red-hot apparitions the past of weather magic, the critique of techno-optimism and the stakes of geo-engineering.
The TÓTalJOY Prize was established by the Museum of Fine Arts – Central European Art History Research Institute (KEMKI) with the generous support of the artist Endre Tót.