Warding Off Crisis

Looking at the current state of our world, one cannot help but feel that the present autumn period – or “spooky season” – is not merely a transitional period of the year, but part of a much broader timeframe that fundamentally defines our present: an ongoing “spooky era”. However, this persistent sense of fear is not caused by ghosts or witches, but by the polycrisis itself, which bears down on us in various forms, including global warming, pandemics, and armed conflicts.

To alleviate the sense of helplessness experienced by those caught in the midst of the polycrisis, some kind of solvent would be needed – but what could it be? The video work titled Warding Off Crisis, which forms the conceptual backbone of the exhibition, offers real or fictional magical techniques through which individuals can come to believe, in a naïve yet unwavering manner and with the help of various props, that they can exert influence over the monumental processes shaping the world. The work speaks of desperate attempts to find a solution, in which, in a state of utter desperation, the forces of nature are not the only means of defence: bitter irony and black humour also come into play, emerging through the textual elements of the video. The film’s “protagonist” embodies a collective expression of individual and shared anxiety, actively confronting the polycrisis and attempting to drive it away through rituals (performances).

The video work, which received the Decode Promising Project Award in Budapest last year, consists of a series of short performances, texts, and found objects, presenting various practices intended to attract good luck and ward off misfortune. These are based on actual ethnographic data, but appear in the work in fictional form, bringing together elements of folk magic and contemporary anxieties. The project’s deeper theoretical framework is rooted in contemporary Gothic, particularly rural and folk Gothic, whose themes, muted colours, and abandoned agricultural landscapes have largely shaped the visual world of the work and the exhibition itself.

The other exhibited works also form part of the ritual universe established by the video: among them, the wall-mounted object Nightmare Mill, the photograph The Burial of Crisis, and a large-scale wall installation in the style of an assemblage.