Weird Harvest (2024)

group exhibition at FKSE Studio Gallery, Budapest (HU) with Luca Petrányi and Luca Rádler, curated by Anna Zsoldos

“We seek to explore a range of contemporary relationships to different folklore – whether archaic, urban, online or fictional – through artistic practice. The title Weird Harvest is borrowed from a card from the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering (MTG), which we use as a metaphor. In our reading, the word “weird” refers to the fact that folklore and folkloric traditions are depoliticised: that is, they are about keeping traditions alive, traditionalism or radicalism. On the other hand, weird refers to the research and creative attitude with which we approach folklore and belief. The etymology of the word (weird << urth (Norse) = norn = twisted fate = fatum (Latin) >> fay >> faerie) has taken on both a magical and an aesthetic meaning, meaning the unexpected, the phenomenal, the twist of fate, the twisted and the fairy.

The harvest marks a stage in the agricultural work of peasant societies, which we now treat as an experimental and conceptual field. In the exhibition we reflect on the act of ingathering, reaping, harvesting in concrete and abstract forms in various creative ways. Harvesting as a phase of work is explored as a complex activity in which physical labour, the use of tools, celebration and the power of magic are simultaneously present.”

Photos by Dávid Biró.

Kóró

[rebar, crow decoys, clothes, soil, plant debris, rubbish bag]

Photos by Dávid Biró.

Pákász

[4'24" silent videoloop, phone, steel gutter]

First-hand mysterious mass bird death event statistics from the Great Hungarian Plain.

Photos by Dávid Biró.

Crop rotation

[29,7 x 42 cm monochrome print, edition of 100]

A diagram of the four stages of a business' lifecycle: expansion, peak, contraction and trough. In the centre, 4 steps to straighten – and then readjust – a scythe: a symbol and improvised weapon of peasant revolts.