BELFAST.- In the years following the death of Hungarian artist Emese Kudász, her son Gábor Arion Kudász catalogued her entire estate and photographed it to secure her fast-fading trace in time, so as to establish a guide to the workings of memory. The method of the photographic research disrupted the order of things she had created, the context that surrounded her and was distinctively her own. Through these cracks hidden aspects of her personality emerged, together with a previously unrealized coherence among her objects; it is no longer possible to tell whether these had existed before or were only the result of the intervention.

Whatever has been in the ground for a long time, say archaeologists, has probably found its best place there. What they mean is that while the excavation may promote knowledge, an important part of the context preserved under the layer of ground is lost when disrupted. The central conflict Kudász faces in his Memorabilia is that on one hand excavation and the documentation of the past serve understanding, on the other hand they accelerate the process of disintegration.

Gábor Arion Kudász was born in Budapest, 1978. He is a photographer, teacher of photography, maker of limited edition photobooks, and a father of three children. He received the Rudolf Balogh award of the Hungarian Republic in 2013 and the Robert Capa Grand Prize in 2015. He graduated in Photography at the Hungarian University of Art and Design in 2003, where he earned his doctorate degree in 2016. His dedicates his works to the study of human presence unfolding in the interplay of man and his environment, often incorporating fictional elements into documentary photography. He is currently teaching at the Photography MA program of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.