Book I. (Literature / Irodalom)
Book II. (Garderobe / Ruhatár)
Book III. (Lucky News / Lóherék)
Book IV. (Floorplan / Alaprajz)
Book V. (Stereotypes / Frázisok)
Book VI. (Relic / Hagyaték)
Book VII. (Family / Család)
Book VIII. (Appendix / Függelék)
Works of Emese Kudász / Kudász Emese festményei

My mother spent endless hours alone. Throughout the years she kept drawing plans for the reconstruction and expansion of our home in Buda, the place of my childhood. The plans were our tool of communicating about future and desires, also a ritual of evening hours. Her plans mostly appeared to me as illusions fit nor for the location or nor our conditions. During my last visits she still liked to present me the additions to her ever changing floorplans that always included me, but I often fell in a numb and deep sleep that was still closer to my own reality.

On the days following her death I begun to categorize, document and photograph all her belongings, garderobe, writings, collections in the possible most objective manner. My goal was to construct a scheme or mechanism of capturing memory. My aim was not solely to chase the memory of my mother, but rather to come up with a general method of stabilization. Concurring with previous expectations, my fumbling around her living space disrupted the order she surrounded herself with. As a result of the excavation I discovered new or hidden facets of her personality and unexpected correlations between objects, but it still remains obscure whether the entirety of connections existed before or were only the result of my intervention. One could argue that there is no use of making an inventory if it implies the network between items to break up. Now, it seems that her memory would have been better and longer preserved — although hidden — if I left everything intact instead.

In 2010 she compiled a best of selection sorted by relevance and practivability. I found them in a folder accompanied by a note "Absolute nonsense! Life is gone."

Archeologists say: something buried for a long time is better kept that way. I guess what they mean by this is that exploration supports understanding, but later down the road artifacts may be never again returned to their state closest to original. The context preserved underground may not be reproduced in the open, findings will be scattered or in a worse scenario they will be lost. The excavation of ruins and documentation of passage may help to hold on to fading memories, but paradoxically it also speeds up the natural process of disintegration.

Floorplan / Alaprajz 2012


The House / A ház 2012

Video loop, 2100x1481 pixel, 3'11"
Edition of 3+Ap

Our plans / Terveink 2012

 

Floorplan is the fourth volume of Memory Guidebook.
Volumes V-VII. are coming soon...
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All photographs © Kudász Gábor Arion