My personal quest is to explore my own identity by seeking answers in my roots, as a Hungarian Roma woman who was raised in a majority society since I was 6 years old, when my parents immigrated from Budapest, Hungary to Toronto, Canada in 1981. The more I plow the field where my roots are embedded, I find myself revealing more and more buried truths in my family history. It's been a struggle, I must admit, coming to terms with where lines have been blurred and misread, succumbing to the reality that I know very little, often feeling that I may have been unfairly mislead by my upbringing to identify as something that I inherently am not... but I am ever so hungry to share in dialogue with other vantage points so that I may better understand all perspectives, even if they may challenge my own – which is, admittedly, ever changing as I learn more along the way. 

In my recent series of portraits of my relatives, Család, I wish to draw lines of dialogue with others - not just with members of my native Hungarian Roma community, but also to spark honest and self-exploratory dialogue with any and all curious onlookers from all communities, minority and majority, alike. I celebrate the heroes whom I have been privy to be connected to, whether it be through blood or through community. I analyze their hardships, the barriers they faced because of oppressive mindsets in majority society and their reactions to such – their resulting choices in life – the traditions that they have held on to, and the parts of their heritage that they abandoned in order to integrate into a majority that is reluctant* to embrace them (*to use the term "reluctant" is mildly put, as often the opposition has been steadfast in their closed mindedness towards minorities, especially the Roma). I try to understand how these factors somehow have led to my own sense of self, my own identity today. Truth be told, there are consequences that I am intrinsically conflicted about, such as the abandonment of identity for the sake of integrating with the majority, because it has caused a palpable division of ideologies and principles between the more traditionalist members of the Roma community and the non-traditional members, such as those in my family, who have broken away from many of their native cultural norms over years of integration into majority society. Yet, I can see why such choices have been made, if for no other reason than for the sake of survival, and were it not for these difficult choices that they made, perhaps I would not be where I am today.

This series in ongoing, a work in progress, that I am currently building on, with many more pieces to come to fruition in the upcoming months.

2017 ősze óta édesanyám kognitív tulajdonságai gyorsan csökkenni kezdtek a demencia sötétségében. Teljesen elvakultan, felkészületlenül mélyen belehúzódtam abban a sötétségbe vele, mivel kétségtelenül kötelességemnek éreztem, hogy muszáj anyám gondozójává válni.

 Egyik nap felhívott telefonon a szomszédja, és sürgetett, hogy menjek az anyukám lakásába, mert hetek óta nem hallott senki semmit felőle. Azt mondta, amikor benézett a lakásába, padlón fekve találta anyukámat az ágya mellett, nem tudott felkelni, nem tudta hogyan került oda, azt sem, hogy mióta feküdt ott. Emlékszem, amikor először láttam anyut ebben a teljes tehetetlen állapotában, és milyen szomorúan kétségbeesetten kért engem, hogy maradjak vele. Teljesen más karakterrel szembesültem akkor, mint az azelőtti merev, független nő, amelynek egész életem keresztül ismertem az édesanyámat - mindig büszkén tartva magát, sokszor ravaszul intelligens. Soha nem volt a kapcsolatunk lelkileg mély - legalábbis nem olyan, mint amire mindig is vágytam. Sajnos legtöbbször konfliktusban voltunk egymással, olyan okok miatt, amelyekbe itt inkább nem mélyedek bele, mert ez egy teljesen más fejezete ennek a történetnek. De az, amúgy, egy nagyon jelentős fejezet, mivel a köztünk lévő, hosszú ideig tartó konfliktus visszhangjai nyílt hegekként jelentek meg azokban az években, amelyeket kizárólag a gondozásával töltöttem, mellette minden nap, főztem, takarítottam, mosogattam, elvittem orvoshoz, több száz emlékeztető jegyzetek kis kocka alakú rózsaszín, sárga, kék és zöld cetlikre firkálva, közelében hagyva neki, hogy ne felejtse el a dolgokat, mivel úgy tűnt, hogy az elméje minden néhány percenként újra nullára visszaállította magát. Csak figyeltem, napról napra, ahogy édesanyám leépült előttem, ahogy a merevségét a hirtelen elkeseredett alázat enyhítette, a penge éles esze vajkéssé tompult, az egykori obszesszív tisztasága apátiás önhanyagsággá romlott, ahogy az saját szülőm gyermekemké vált.

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Since the autumn of 2017, my mother's cognizance  began to rapidly decline into the darkness of dementia. Completely blindsided, I was pulled deep into that darkness with her, as I felt unquestionably inclined to take care of her. I remember getting a call from her neighbours one day, urging me to go to her apartment and check in on her because they had not heard from her for weeks. When they went to check in on her, they found her lying on the floor next to her bed unable to get up and not knowing how she got there, nor how long she had been on the floor.  I remember seeing my mother for the first time in that state of complete helplessness, expressing such desperacy for me to stay with her. This, coming from a woman I had known all my life to be rigid and completely self-sufficient, always holding her own proudly, shrewdly intelligent.  We were never close, most often in conflict, for reasons I need not delve deeply into at the moment, because that's a whole other chapter to this story. But it is a very significant chapter, since echoes of that long-running conflict between us surfaced as open scars throughout the years I spent solely caregiving for her, at her side every day, cooking, cleaning, washing her, taking her to doctor's appointments, leaving her hundreds of tiny reminder notes so she wouldn't forget things, as her mind seemed to reset every few minutes without jogging of her memory. I watched my mother turn from adult to child before me, her rigidness softened by a sudden desperate humility, her blade sharp wit dulled into a butter knife, her once obsessive cleanliness deteriorate into apathetic self-neglect...

This series consists of works that came forth during the past three years while caring for my mother every day in her home. An experience that changed me inside and out, often tearing me open and exposing my raw insides to both myself and those few who were in my immediate vicinity. But it also was an undeniable learning experience and very emotional journey that opened doors to my subconsciousness that had been locked up for years.  Indeed, many of the truths that were unearthed played directly into my explorations into my family history, as noted in the Család series, and helped to come to terms with some of my questions about my own identity and self-awareness. 

Again, a work in progress, with more to come in the following months, as there are a number of unfinished pieces that are in the process of being carved out.

In the spring of 2008, my then 6 year old son, Sylus, and I, picked up and moved our lives from Toronto, Canada, back to where I was born: Budapest, Hungary. We spent the following 5 years carving out a new life for ourselves in Budapest, disoriented at first, but eventually we made the city streets into a tiny version of our own. For many of the early years I navigated the streets of budapest with my camera always in hand, devouring the scenes of everyday life that I came across day to day. Fascinated with the people and their energies, with a particular affinity to the older generation, a sentimental draw to nostalgia. This is a collection of some of my reinterpretations of select photos from hundreds of street scenes that I photographed during that time, as I rediscovered "home", with the addition of some newer pieces that emerged in more recent years.

Most of my street photography from those years, between 2008 - 2013, can be viewed on my photo blog, We Live in Budapest.