World soul. A force permeating matter, giving shape and function to its parts and its entirety.The assumption of an organizing principle. In his latest project, Máté Bartha takes on the role of a fictive observer, to create a universe of images, attempting to present the hidden anatomy of the metropolis as a metaphysical mirror of human existence. Urban space is a social product, a "second nature" created by people, as the philosopher Henri Lefebvre called it. But at the same time, an organism no longer governed by its creators, but becoming the governing force itself. It cannot be understood any longer via anthropocentric thought structures, but through the post-human grammar of the city itself. Anima Mundi is a poetic take on the desperate act of trying to find structure and meaning in the phenomena around us, in this case, looking at the metropolis as the entirety of creation. The project draws its inspiration from attempts that, balancing between science and magic, tried to define entirety: the enigmatic Voynich manuscript, Robert Fludd's holistic approach, or their contemporary paraphrase, Codex Seraphinianus. Patterns and different grid structures emerge on and in between the images, standing as an allegory for mankind’s endeavors to create order out of chaos, and to make sense of the arbitrariness that surrounds us – something we ourselves have created. The project has been developed together with Emese Mucsi, curator of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center.
The project was funded by the József Pécsi National Scholarship for Photographers of Hungary, and developed through AFM - Art Foto Mode (Athens, Berlin, Budapest), H - The Notion of Humanist Photography Kaunas Gallery, and at the Cité des Artes Paris via the artist exchange programme of Budapest Gallery, Hungary.
The project was funded by the József Pécsi National Scholarship for Photographers of Hungary, and developed through AFM - Art Foto Mode (Athens, Berlin, Budapest), H - The Notion of Humanist Photography Kaunas Gallery, and at the Cité des Artes Paris via the artist exchange programme of Budapest Gallery, Hungary.
Exhibition views from:
TOBE Gallery, Budapest, 2022
Balabanov's House - Plovdiv - International Meetings of Photography, 2023
Pavillon Populaire Montpellier, Les Boutographies, 2024
TOBE Gallery, Budapest, 2022
Balabanov's House - Plovdiv - International Meetings of Photography, 2023
Pavillon Populaire Montpellier, Les Boutographies, 2024
The project has been awarded:
PHMuseum Grant - Main Prize Honourable Mention, 2024
Les Boutographies, Montpellier - Jury Prize, 2024
PHMuseum Grant - Main Prize Honourable Mention, 2024
Les Boutographies, Montpellier - Jury Prize, 2024
The book Anima Mundi is under development and since 2024 existing in the form of a dummy, designed by
Carel Fransen (The Eriskay Connection), and text by Emese Mucsi (Robert Capa Photography Center). Within his book Máté Bartha uses only images, developing a special taxonomy of urban phenomena, deconstructing many genres of scientific publications, thus giving pride of place to personal interpretation and subjective experience. Thus Anima Mundi as a book is structured like an obscure encyclopedia, divided into chapters that present reality through the semantics of urban phenomena, from its most basic forms, through human society to a cosmic perspective.
Carel Fransen (The Eriskay Connection), and text by Emese Mucsi (Robert Capa Photography Center). Within his book Máté Bartha uses only images, developing a special taxonomy of urban phenomena, deconstructing many genres of scientific publications, thus giving pride of place to personal interpretation and subjective experience. Thus Anima Mundi as a book is structured like an obscure encyclopedia, divided into chapters that present reality through the semantics of urban phenomena, from its most basic forms, through human society to a cosmic perspective.
