In connection with the exhibition taking place in the basement gallery of the Vajda Lajos Studio in Szentendre, 𝓁𝓊𝓉𝓊𝓂 (Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing) continue their artistic research to date: they are concerned with early childhood socialization, school as a secondary environment, exclusionary and abusive patterns within children’s communities, and the possibilities for processing past abuse and isolation in adulthood. All of this is presented in the installation in a subtle, metaphorical, and poetic manner.
The exhibition’s title is borrowed from Sylvia Plath’s novel *The Bell Jar* (1963). Another key reference point is the dual world of the floodplain: the layering of decomposition and decay occurring in the depths, and the new qualities emerging on the water’s surface. In lutum’s installations, soft and rigid, ephemeral and static material qualities—adobe, sand, glass, textile, and paper—are placed side by side.
Lungs expanding again after a state of oxygen deprivation.
The exhibition’s dramaturgy draws in part from archaic stories and feminist interpretations of fairy tales, in which motifs of immersion, getting lost, or physical absence signify transitional states from which new resources can emerge, carrying within them the possibility of future inner transformation.
The basement gallery of the Lajos Vajda Studio also plays a prominent role in this. The vaulted, church-like space of the former storage room and its proximity to the Danube are organically linked to lutum’s riverbed-inspired, introspective approach to installation.
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𝓁𝓊𝓉𝓊𝓂 – Stella Koleszár & Eszter Metzing
“Lutum” is a common noun of Latin origin meaning sludge, mud, or clay. Lutum is also an art duo formed by Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing. They have been working together since 2022 („Born of slime and decay”, ISBN Gallery, Budapest) alongside their individual practices in applied arts and autonomous visual creation. Their most recent joint project was the installation titled Fragile Sanity, presented as part of the After Laughter group exhibition in Graz (2025), which is also featured in this exhibition, supplemented with new pieces created specifically for the Vajda Lajos Studio gallery.
The works, presented in dialogue, are based on the consistent use of the collage principle (the varied, simultaneously conceptual and sensitive use of materials of differing qualities, such as glass elements created with distinct technological solutions embedded in an adobe installation environment, cotton, patent leather, and paper); an interest in the archaic, in fairy tales and their psychological implications, with a focus on women’s experiences; and their shared socialization during youth, the landscape of Southern Transdanubia, and their experiences of the Danube floodplains in Mohács.
Their collaboration is further strengthened by the fact that they are both currently members of the aqb studio house community.