My art is inseparable from the coping after survival and from the gesture and actions of healing and from the love of animals. These transformations have creative potential. Because traumas must be transformed into steps of community building, common development and connection.
In 2003, I obtained my first degree (BA) in teaching with a minor in music. I earned my second degree, an MA, in pedagogy and Hungarian literature in 2008. I’ve been writing poems since 2010.
The post-communist Hungary, where I was born and which is now becoming a competitive authoritarian system, restricts artists' self-expression and existential safety in many ways. As a result, I lost my connection to art for almost a decade and a half. For a long time, I worked with the rehabilitation of traumatized dogs. In January 2024, my husband and I emigrated to Finland.
Since then, I have been teaching myself to draw and paint. The endless pine forests, exploring the archipelago, and the atmosphere of the harbors fill me with joy. I want to leave as small ecological footprint as possible, even in my creative work. That's why oil pastels and water-soluble paints appeal to me.
It is important to support the abused so that they can become survivors from victims. It is important that they have autonomy and a future. It is important that everyone has their own dignified life.
That's why my vision is to define the pieces of reality, to put them in context, to help us face them. My vision is a society where discourse on human rights is unnecessary because free participation, choice of profession, security, equality, and work-based wages free from discrimination are fundamental and integral parts of public thinking.
The more space we give to creation and the thinking that goes with it, the more people will find words and ways to express their emotions and experiences. They will be able to broaden their horizons and demonstrate their values. Belonging to a community gives joy. Art provides affirmation, friendships and a supportive atmosphere that relieves loneliness. We all want to belong to others. We want recognition. A life full of dignity and opportunities.
I think these are the building blocks of healthy personality development and, indirectly, of societies becoming adults and responsible. I would like to encourage and support my fellow women by sharing my story. To put the importance of women's and animal rights into discourse.
A Bouquet of Patriarchal Charm
A bouquet of flowers for Women’s Day, a bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day! The gift can of course be jewelry, a wellness weekend, theater tickets, a shopping spree. Only, that a few things are not irrelevant… It matters whether we receive a gift out of love, or because our partner cheated on us and only wants to ease their guilty conscience. It matters whether our partner wants to bring us joy, or in reality does not care about us, does not devote time to us, and tries to compensate with things that can be bought with money. It matters whether gift-giving is a natural part of their love language, or whether they are merely trying to keep us in an abusive relationship with a theatrical performance meant for the outside world, saying you are my everything, let others see this too, while conspicuously carrying home a bouquet of roses. And of course, it also matters whether, during the rest of the year, household chores and the work with children, pets, and elderly family members are divided fifty-fifty, or whether the woman does all of this alone. After which, on Women’s Day and on Valentine’s Day, she is further burdened with the expectation that now she should “be happy” about the flowers and that it is time to act as if her own life, her me-time, her very self had not ceased to exist, while she continuously, alone, performs the daily, endlessly regenerating work of several people. A bouquet of flowers does not compensate for invisible labor, and it does not replace loving care! And a relationship only endures if the people in it work together for their own and their shared development separately, and not incidentally their goals, what they want to achieve in their lives, point in the same direction. A healthy relationship is more likely to form in a healthy society, where the participants are regarded as equal parties and they themselves feel that way and behave accordingly.
Imagine the following! Let’s say you waste 9 months of your life on a father of two, trying to build a functioning relationship. He almost never comes to you, you commute. After two months you are cleaning his three-room apartment, doing the dishes, doing the laundry. You play with his children: you race cars in video games, build Lego, paint wargaming miniatures, buy them gifts for Christmas, you grow to love them. You take the man, with your own money, to a stand-up show, to a couples’ wellness massage, to a sports event, to a restaurant. Meanwhile you pay for maintaining your own rental apartment and for the taxi when you go to him after work. He, in the meantime, mostly sits on the couch with his feet up, smoking. And on your first summer he even organizes his mother to join the vacation along with the children, a woman he cannot stand, by the way. It does not even occur to him to plan anything with you. You change apartments, ask him to bring a few things over to the new place by car, and you are stunned when he indignantly informs you that he is not a free chauffeur… You break up with him, and “in response” he does not even let you say goodbye to the children… Surely I do not need to explain that from such a person, and from those like him, a few clothes, or even jewelry, a wellness weekend, theater tickets, a shopping spree, mean absolutely nothing? What is more! You gladly take the received gifts to a donation container for those in need.
The vase, you see, is not an empty jam jar. The colorful flower is not a colorless, worn wooden spoon. And the elegant wrapping paper is not crumpled, grease-stained baking paper. Just as love and care are not empty phrases and the scattering of a bit of loose change…
When we moved to Finland, we experienced the pleasant surprise that February 14 here is Ystävänpäivä, that is, Friendship Day. Greeting cards are sent and small surprises are given to one another by best friends, social gatherings, lunches, and dinners are organized for young and old alike. The celebration therefore is not only for romantic partners.