SZILVIA BOLLA
Szilvia Bolla’s interests as photographer have always been much broader than rigorous imaging practice. She used to call her practice ‘cryptophotographic’ as the logic behind it originates to light sensitive silver halide crystals reacting to photo chemicals as experiments in the darkroom. She found the abstraction in photography immensely relieving as she immersed herself in the camera-less techniques.
Most recently she explores matter as a lively agent whether organic or inorganic, visible or invisible, fictional or real through sculpture and installation. Within her artistic research, Bolla tackles new materialist vitalism and feminist corporeality to deal with possible narratives of survival and critical thinking in relation to the body, identity and technology after Capitalism.
From a new materialist point of view, which she also represents, materiality is always something more than “mere” matter: an excess, force, vitality, relationality, or difference that renders matter active, productive, and unpredictable. The feminist material turn evokes a shift from casting the body as passive matter by emphasising interconnectedness and the uncertain actions with nonhuman creatures, ecological systems, or chemical agents. Therefore, trans-corporeality evokes all worldly entanglement between all the substances of the environment including the intimate exchange between humans and their artifacts.
With focus on ‘techno fossils’ as material traces embedded in the landscapes of the ‘Capitalocene’, she attempts to investigate the agency of plastics in relation to other earthly entitles. Their life as precarious, omnipresent artifacts, death as petrochemical debris, and possible rebirth whether as micro particles floating in fresh organs or as forever recycled commodities. Based on both speculation and fact, Bolla blends various thermoplastic and metal components to create sculptures. Through organic abstraction, she looks at ornaments as tools of symbolic thinking. She attempts to tackle hybrid materiality and the fluidity between image and object ontologies while developing a distinct visual language. As a result of this her works have an unusual dual nature; they are elegant and brutal, fragile and spiky, tranquil and anxious at the same time.
BIO
Born in 1992, Budapest, HU
Lives and works in Amsterdam/Budapest
Education
2017 - 2019
MA Photography, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, HU
2018 - 2019
Erasmus exchange – Spatial Design, Universität der Künste Berlin, DE
2013 - 2016
BA Fine Art Photography, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK
Residencies
2019
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, FR
Scholarships, Awards
2022
ISCP New York July-August residency, International Visegrad Fund
2018
DECODE Award 1st Prize, BORD Architectural Studio, Budapest, HU
Futures, European Photography Platform, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest, HU
LATENT Shortlist - D.O.O.R., Matèria Gallery, Milan, IT
Erasmus + Scholarship, Universität der Künste Berlin, DE
2017
Erasmus + Scholarship, Lab4art, Budapest, HU
Other
2021 -
Studio of Young Artists’ Association, Budapest, HU
She became one half of Alagya, a world built together with Áron Lődi.
2018 -
Studio of Young Photographers, Budapest, HU
exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2017
I’m only showing what you want to see, LLPlatform, Budapest, HU
Safe Space, TOBE Gallery, Budapest, HU
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
Youhu, Kieselbach Gallery, Budapest, HU
TOOL ACTIVITY, Kunsthalle Kosice, SK
From "Abstraction" to Abstraction, Fundacja Stefana Gierowskiego, Warsaw, PL
Wormhole, Galleria Bianconi, Milan, IT
Global crises, local relationships, Easttopics, Budapest
Kezdetben volt a kert II., ELTE Füvészkert, Budapest
The Garden of Gods, Ultrastudio, Pescara, IT
BAITBALL (02), Palazzo San Giuseppe, Polignano a Mare, IT
2021
Enter the funky jungle, AQB Project Space, Budapest, HU
Alagya - First Songs of Sympoiesis, LB Project Space, Budapest, HU
Learning from The Mud, Off-site exhibition, Csongrád, HU
Biomimicry Collection London, Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
2020
’MMM’, AQB underground tunnel system, Budapest, HU
The Days Are Just Packed, The Pool, Istanbul, TR
2019
My Body Is Your Body too with Alex Selmeci, VUNU Gallery, Košice, SK
Rhizome Parking Garage, The Wrong Biennale
New Magic Wand, Hotdock Project Space, Bratislava, SK
ENTKUNSTUNG | VERKUNSTUNG, Austrian Kulturforum Berlin, DE
Designtransfer, Vorspiel / Imaginary Spaces, transmediale, Berlin, DE
2018
Excavating Darkness, curated by Áron Fenyvesi, Trafó Gallery, Budapest, HU
DECODE Award, Faur Zsófi Gallery, Budapest, HU
Trafó smART! XTRA, Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest, HU
Unseen, Futures Photography Platform, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Amsterdam, NL
FLUX FIX, Eleven Blokk Space, Budapest, HU
K.A.S. Gallery, Studio of Young Photographers, Budapest, HU
2017
ViennaContemporary 2017, TOBE Gallery, AT
Art Market Budapest 2017, TOBE Gallery, HU
Studi Festival, Next Level with Giorgia Castiglioni and Steven Gee, Milan, IT
2016
Sticking the Moon With Double Sided Tape, Fotopub, SI
Camberwell College of Arts Degree Show, University of the Arts London, London, UK
Less Photography, More Photographic, SP3 Gallery, Treviso, IT
We Slept In The Same Room, The Doomed Gallery, London, UK
2015
UNIT, Dilston Grove Gallery, London, UK
2014
Grey Space Gallery, London, UK
Parallelism with Réka Kóti, Telep, Budapest, HU
publications
Alagya – First Songs of Sympoiesis @ Létminimum basis. Artmagazin Online. 2021. 09. 24.
Cserna Endre, Szilágyi Róza Tekla: “Mindig a fotó egyfajta destrukciójával foglalkoztam.” Interjú Bolla Szilviával. Artmagazin Online. 2021. 11. 30.
Futures Talents 2018. capacenter.hu
Michalina Sablik: 10 Artists from Hungary to follow. Contemporary Lynx. 2021. 01. 21.
Portfolio: Szilvia Bolla. Futures Photography
Secondary Archive. 2021.
Sipos Máté: A fény útja. Designisso. 2019. 08. 25.
Szilvia Bolla. Coeval Magazine