Anna SZIGETHY: Random Coincidences – Heightened uncertainty

Random Coincidences is based on a series of photographs I have taken during my urban vagrancies in Berlin, Le Havre and Haifa over the last decade. I have sought or found at random unusual urban situations, surprising locations that, even in their black-and-white photographic nature, have tended to be unsettling. The risograph prints made from these images have a dynamic, dramatic effect due to the shifting layers and the random blue tones in black and white, which is amplified by the large size. This imagery is a kind of summary of what has been happening around us in the last two years, from Covid to the war in Ukraine, when basic, everyday things such as leaving home, traveling, and gatherings have become uncertain. The relatively predictable vision of the future disappeared, and the intense, everyday fear of the unknown (illness, war) burst in.

The places and events of our lives can appear in many different ways, for example, we inevitably look for places that seem idyllic and likeable, unaffected by general malaise. But as we look around us, as in a conspiracy theory, everything can become threatening; the peaceful urban landscape becomes at once a terrifying place, with uncertain contours and overwrought emotions. The reduced color palette of the large prints and the technique’s ability to blur outlines – the ghosting effect – moved the objective architectural photographs and street scenes not only from the present to the past, but also to a possible dramatic future. Scattered, unrecognizable, yet very familiar outlines of landscapes, houses, cities. Everything has become different.

/Anna Szigethy/

http://szigethyanna.blog.free.fr/
Risograph prints: Hurrikan Press