Eleven institutions from eleven European countries cooperate as part of the European Photography Platform’s Futures project in order to discover emerging talents and to introduce them on an international level, especially to the European art market. As a platform partner, the Capa Center selected five young authors during Budapest Portfolio Review 2019 who joined Unseen Amsterdam this September. Get to know the Futures talents of Capa Center!
Kata Geibl
Kata Geibl (1989) studied photography in Budapest at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) and at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Finland. Her work is mainly focused on humanity, collective memory and the ambiguities of the photographic medium. In the last 3 years, she has exhibited in group shows in Budapest and became a member of the Young Artists’ and Photographers’ Association. She presented her most recent series, Sisyphus, at the Unseen Amsterdam festival in September which was followed by her first solo show in Budapest. In 2018 she received the Photography Scholarship of the Association of Hungarian Photographers, was a finalist at Breda Photo Talent Program and won the emerging talent Paris Photo Carte Blanche Students Award. This year she received the Pécsi József Photography Scholarship and is shortlisted for PALM Photo Prize. In September she is starting her studies at KABK’s Photography and Society Master Program.
When and how did you first get acquainted with photography? When and how did it become important for you?
I’ve been interested in photography since I was a little kid, I asked for a camera for Easter when I was only 5. It became really important only later, when I decided to quit my motion picture studies to pursue my dream to become a photo artist. I had faced lots of challenges and failures before I was admitted to photography, and probably these were the years that made me realize how important the creative work and photography itself was for me.
How do you see your relationship to photography? How do you use this medium?
Photography is a kind of language for me, through which I can better express myself than through words. This is usually also how my series are structured: I have a thesis, which I unfold bit by bit with the help of images. In my works I often question the “truthfulness” and objectivity of photography, while this dichotomy is exactly what constitutes the power of the photograph for me. Although I use reality as my canvas, I am not restricted to move within its limitations.
Generally, which are the most important questions for you, and how do you reflect on these in your works?
What I’m most interested in is the contemporary context we live in. The topics that accompany our everyday lives, without us ever really consciously incorporating them or dealing with them at all. Lately I’ve been interested in our consumer culture and the Anthropocene era, and this is what my work explores as well: how we relate to nature, to power, and to society.
What do you think about the situation and the future of photography?
Our accelerated world and our image consuming habits have been so tremendously transformed in the past decade that contemporary photography doesn’t have a choice but to adjust. I think we are still just probing, where and how to go from here – maybe one decade from now we will also have our answers to that. Photography is very much in a search for itself, while also opening up towards other media, which is very inspiring for me. The big question regarding the future of photography is where we go from here. Maybe back to the beginnings.
What are you working on, and what are your short-term plans?
At present I’m working on a new series titled Nincs semmi új a Nap alatt (There’s Nothing New Under the Sun), which explores the above-mentioned topicsvia associations. As for my plans: in September I’ll continue my master’s studies in the Hague, at the Royal Academy of Art, so probably this will mostly determine my next two years.
Selection from Kata Geibl’s photos
