Mai Manó Gallery ("Kis Manó")

WATER and FUTURE

GOMBAI Gellért, HAINER István, HODOSY Enikő, KÁSA István, RISKÓ Gáspár, SOMOGYVÁRI Kata, SZABADOS Tibor, SZEBENI Gyula, SZIRÁKI Lili, Anna Zavileiskaia

“Water has no taste, no color, no odor;
it cannot be defined, art relished while ever mysterious.
Not necessary to life, but rather life itself.
It fills us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

On the occasion of the International Year of Water Cooperation and the Budapest Water Summit on October 8-11, 2013, the Hungarian House of Photography and the Indafotó website announced a photo contest to provide an opportunity for all those camera users who find it important to reflect on water and to capture the relations between Water and Future. The independent professional jury selected 10 photographs that approach the concept of water, as well their personal relationship and related symbols from various aspects.

Since earliest times, ever since mankind has sought to capture and understand its history, water has been the symbol of life and constant change. A symbol of life as the constant movements and changing of water represents the flow of life itself in the cycle of life. Of life: since life on Earth and the sustainability of humanity are unimaginable without water. Of changes: since in the cycle of life the constant change and movement of water symbolizes the flow of life and the changing of time. While water is the symbol of purity and purification, if contaminated, it stands as one fundamental allegory of humanity’s self-destruction and frailty. By today, water has become one of the major issues in public life. We can hear more and more about it in the form of warnings about conscious consumption, or alarming news about the melting Arctic ice, or footage of the earth devastated by floods, violent storms, and threatening droughts. The contest and the exhibition both intend to draw attention to the values and innate documentary nature of photography, reaching out for both posterity and the present as well.