Artist Statement
I care about the people I take a picture of. I listen to them. I watch them. Sometimes it seems to me that the best thing I can do is simply turn to the other person without any regrets. And ask - or tell - the other person what they are interested in. Something they might ask of me, too. I could talk with them about the things they have, the things they experience, i.e. this is what I would prefer and how I would prefer it.
And thus photography teaches me to love.
Process Statement
Love to my model opens my own boundaries, shows the outside world, to perceive,feel, sometimes even on my skin. It helps me to unify with the outside world; to question my own rigidity, limitations, to learn how to open myself to the problems, to my problems, and perceive myself as part of the whole universe.
And if I am part of the whole universe, I know that I am responsible for it too. And I know that if something is good to me, it is good for the whole as we all share something in common.
Lilla Szász is in practice of travelling and exploring lives of closed communities (e.g: chosen families) in Hungary and all over the world. She has photographed homeless mothers, young criminal girls, and, most recently, Russian Jewish Veterans of the Second World War.
Lilla Szász is a teacher of photography at Kontakt Courses in Art Photography (Hungary) and Mosoly Foundation (Hungary), a photo-journalist, and consults privately with numerous photographers and visual artists. She is best known for the series Mother Michael Goes to Heaven, which examines the life of a chosen family that was formed between three prostitutes living together in Józsefváros neighbourhood of Budapest.
Szász’s work has been exhibited and published internationally, including most recently, at Aqui Estamos, Photo Espana, with Richard Avedon, Richard Billingham and Paz Errazuriz, Shanghai World Expo, LIVE SYNC. Contemporary Photography from Hungary, and "Laboratory East" Swiss Photo Award.
She has been the recipient of an Eötvös Fellowship from the Hungarian Government, grants Photo Espana, and Colors Magazine. Born in Budapest in 1977, she received her MA from University ELTE in Art History and Russian language and literature in Budapest in 2000.
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