10.-30.5.2008

On this exhibition I use the two gallery rooms as separate but still connected units, antagonistic pairs. The installation attempts to bring to mind the reality of social, ethical, spiritual and biological existence. This game is ruled by the aggression of the capitalist consumerism which is indifferent about the fragility of a single life. The consumer implicitly accepts the inevitability of the constant control on our lives. The mental convenience generates closeness which finally generates fear. If the civilian fears than he/she behaves exactly the way the authority expects. Then the soldier takes the illusory role of the brave man who supposed to save us from our death. This new faith desperately tries to secure us from raising questions on one of the basic conditions of our existence, the death, the only certain and simultaneously unknowable fact.

I was born in the former communist Czechoslovakia as a member of the Hungarian minority. During the first year of my secondary school studies the communism suddenly collapsed, later the country split up. I started my University studies in the new independent SlovakRepublic. In the middle of nineties I gradually got interested in the possibilities of video and performance art and consequently in installation art as well. After receiving my diploma I applied to the Intermedia Department’s postgraduate program of the HungarianAcademy of Fine Arts in Budapest. I am a member of the Young Artists Association in Budapest and through its artist in residency exchange program I got to Finland first time few years ago. Since Christmas last year there are no physical borders between my home country and the rest of the EU. In my recent works I am interested about the impact of culture on human values.  

Roland Farkas