Zsofia Sivak - Our Prices are in Forints

The tavern, the pub was the defining and fundamental venue of provincial life for a long time. The pub was the place where the laborers threw back the cheapest kind of shots at dawn in order to gain strength for the daily sweat; the place where the retired policeman and firefighter met during the mornings to discuss the weekend’s football matches over a fröccs (wine spritzer). It was the place where abandoned husbands could lean on the counter and whine about their problems that life is not worth a dime without a wife who left them on their own for good only a week ago. The pub was the place where no one asked you but someone always listened to you.

In recent years several rural taverns had to close their doors permanently or had to transform themselves into something totally different, deprived from their original functions. In my photo series I am going to visit and photograph the pubs which are still in business in Heves county's settlements under the population of 3000 inhabitants. I was born and raised in the county of my project, therefore my choice was a rather personal one. Heves county is located in the northeast part of Hungary, in the Northern Hungary region. It is composed of 107 villages, 3 towns and 11 cities. According to the census carried out in 2018 the population of the county is around 295.000 people, however the tendencies of the past years are showing a constant decrease of this number. The rural life as I know it has started to transform entirely due to the desolation of smaller settlements.

Besides finding the topic visually interesting and appealing, I can interpret pubs as a kind of pattern as well, through which intend in a way to demonstrate and illustrate the current state of Hungarian countryside together with the social class who lives here. The current state of pubs is changing accordingly to the above mentioned process. Based on my brief interviews conducted with publicans everyone agreed on the fact that pub culture is decaying and slowly disappearing.

There are several reasons that can be held accountable for these drastic changes, mainly the smoking ban on public indoor smoking (introduced in 2012); the banning of slot machines; the appearance and spread of tobacco shops and the expansion of the Internet. Furthermore the innkeepers listed the reducing number of pensioners and the youngsters who are going out in bigger cities among the problems as well. It was also mentioned several times that people living in small villages can not afford to go to taverns anymore, instead they buy the liquor in shops and consume it at home. Most of the places are working as family businesses, nonetheless the offsprings do not take over the business in most cases, which leads to closure as well.

@zsofiasivak

Beatrice Calastrini - Beyond the Night

During the summer in the extreme northern latitudes, the concept of night dissolves, the sun never sets, remaining suspended in an infinite twilight.

These images capture that magical and ethereal light of the midnight sun between Finland and Norway, telling the story of the encounter between nature and light, revealing surreal nuances and atmospheres that challenge the perception of day and night.

The sun, instead of disappearing beyond the horizon, remains suspended in a fragile balance, dyeing the sky with unique colors. This visual experience is a tribute to the cosmic wonder of our planet, where time seems to stop and light becomes an eternal presence, evoking the thin line between reality and dream.

@flowersbeatrice

Anna Laza - Blue Siege

The mysterious flying objects activity over New Jersey late 2024 brought unnecessary attention to the phenomena, while similar incidents have been sighted across the globe for last 19 years, with authorities citing threats to public safety and national security. The remote island of Cyprus has become a nexus of extraordinary extraterrestrial phenomena, far surpassing any other location on Earth.

The project code-named "Blue Siege," utilized military-grade systems like XM25 and HELLADS, uncovering artifacts and biological traces of non-human origin. Data was shared with top authorities, including the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

Advanced surveillance equipment detected numerous electromagnetic anomalies. These incidents were marked by equipment malfunctions, strange lights, and unexplained physical and psychological effects on local residents.

A key case, Contactee #116, described a March 2024 encounter with a shape-shifting object emitting a paralyzing light, leading to a time lapse and enhanced sensory abilities.

Subsequent social media research revealed similar global incidents, aligning temporally with the Cyprus events.

UAP SC Task Force

Sector 7"

@laza_anna

annalaza.com

Chiara Benzi - Endure

"How much can a body endure?" Benzi asks herself. She explores our longings and fears projected onto nature and what our bodies can endure, starting with the physical body and then lifting off into a more oneiric space. The project transcends our dysfunctional coexistence with nature, embracing a fantasy in which a woman becomes a dream, an animal, a plant... A woman returns to soil, returns to frailer form. Using photography, video and sound, her work aims to involve the viewer in a dreamlike voyage through the most hungry, lustful, disgusting, vulnerable part of herself speaking. At the same time, she seeks a link between personal and collective, between introspection and connection, creating the ambiguity ratio, the double entendre, and the double meaning. It’s an open reflection that draws from imagination as a favored tool of discovery and contamination in relationships between humans and the rest of the living beings.

@benzichiara