The focus of the collection, which was created in 2022, is on the uses of photography in the 21st century, the memories of analogue photography in its decline and resurgence, and the digital photography that is pervasive. Its collection includes unique and series-value images by professional photojournalists, artist-inspired creators and amateur photographers, as well as the work of outstanding photographers. With an eye to the influence of smart devices, social media and artificial intelligence, the collection's perspective aims to provide a comprehensive view of contemporary photography from a technical, creative and practical perspective. The first items in the collection are photo books nominated for the National Museum's Rosti Prize.
Contact Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák, szegedy.maszak.zsuzsanna@hnm.hu Tel.
Bence Madas' photo won the first prize in the Kertész/Copies photo competition for analogue photographers in the summer of 2024. The invited selection jury member, Gergely Szatmári, judged the entries as follows: The topic and the puzzling title of the picture instantly provokes the viewer's curiosity and reflection. The choice of distance and composition implies an experimental creative attitude. The visual excitement lies in the simplicity of the subject, the choice of distance and the composition. The depiction of the figure is both ordinary and sublime."
Máté Ladjánszki, who has recently started to photograph with instax technique, entered the self-portrait category of the Kertész/Kópiák photo competition for analogue photographers in the summer of 2024, and his entry was shortlisted in the second round. The photographer is pictured in front of his own collection of signs, some of which he acquired abroad, which decorate the walls of his room. The signs' distinctive, reflective surfaces are given varying degrees of emphasis – not necessarily in proportion to the weight of the information they signify. Máté Ladjánszki's profile portrait appears in the middle of a no entry from either direction sign, in the bottom corner of the picture.
The Rosti Award, established in 2019 and presented every two years, was granted for the second time to Lajos Csontó's photo book "Year of the Dog 2020". The book and the series of photographs, previously presented in the form of an exhibition, are the result of the author's own near-death experience; images, taken with a mobile phone, appearing on the pages are interwoven with handwritten or scrawled fragments of poems and texts. In the order suggested by the book format, the "reader" follows the spiritual process of convalescence, of which religious prayer and supplication were an important part.
The starting point of Lilla Szász's photographic project Greetings from my new home is the story of the state-aided repatriation of nearly 800,000 Portuguese citizens, the so-called retornado, from the Portuguese colonies in Africa in 1975. Lilla Szász's photographs shed light on the personal aspects of this historical event by employing a wide range of portraiture: the book presents portraits of people and places at the same time. The private histories start from locations that still exist today: homes of widely varying quality and character, from former five-star hotels to military barracks, which are physical repositories of decades of memories.
