MAKESHIFT MONUMENTS, 2010 Artist's Statement
These images were made in the Hungarian Cultural and Social Centre in Bradford. Due to a diminishing membership the committee agreed to sell up and close down the club in August 2010. The news of its closure was the impetus for me to begin photographing it - I wanted to record it somehow - before it was gone. My father Attila was a freedom fighter in the Hungarian revolution who, along with his elder brother Laszlo fled Budapest when the revolt was overthrown. The brothers settled in Bradford where in early 1957 the Hungarian Club was established.
I am interested in the urge to hold on to disappearing or changing parts of ones life, hindered by the fact that to actually attempt this for real is both impossible and absurd. Photography can act as a a kind of cushion to time's relentless movement forward, it can appear to 'fasten down' the present moment or attempt to preserve the soon-to-disappear.
Makeshift Monuments represents my desire, urge and struggle to realise the task of somehow keeping hold of this place. The tug of war between photography's ability to 'capture' and life's necessity to move on is represented throughout the construction, production and installation of the work.
Back to MAKESHIFT MONUMENTS images
OTHER TEXTS ON THE WORK