The Nature of Things
Humans are the only living beings who are aware of the finality of life. We are bound to accept this fact with total vulnerability. How can the transient nature of our personality be acknowledged in an individualistic society? Three years ago, I set out to find an answer to this question in my photo series.
When I started to work on the project, my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. If our personality completely disappears at the moment of our death, then we can think of dementia as that frozen moment in which, day after day, we slowly drift away from ourselves. Her disease carries within it the starting point of my fears.
Ever so slowly, the original project turned into a collaborative effort with her. Photography and the time spent together helped us reconnect with each other in a new way. The last time I felt such an intense connection with my grandmother was when I was a child and she used to distract me with made-up stories during boring bus trips. Now she was the one in the role of a child, and I took her to places where one would not normally take a grandmother who is slow to move and suffers from dementia. These trips had a great impact on her and perhaps helped delay some of the worse symptoms of dementia.
While I’m watching my grandmother change both mentally and physically, I’m aiming to embrace acceptance, striving to experience the existing order in the world, in which the transience of life also plays a part.
This collaboration had a great impact on my grandmother, our relationship has also evolved. The reason why I started to record videos was to show this personal aspect of the project. Although I don’t regard these videos as a part of the series, in my opinion they are important to be shared.
Balázs Turós (1990) has studied photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, lived in England for 2 years and 6 months travelled around China. Once back in Budapest, he enrolled in a Master of Photography course at MOME. Since then he has been pursuing his own projects as a József Pécsi Fellowship recipient.
