On 16 January 2025, at 18:00, the final event of the first part of the project Beyond Bare Life – Neglected by Institutionalised Care will take place under the title Testállítás. The evening will feature Eszter Őze, art historian, cultural researcher and the HODWORKS dance company.
The evening will start at 18:00 with a lecture by Eszter Őze, followed at 18:45 by a performance by the HODWORKS company.
Location: ISBN+, 1085 Budapest, Baross u. 42.
Free entrance.
In the final lecture of the semester, we will continue to address one of the questions raised by the project: how a nation-state or power system positions itself through the development and representation of health institutions. By examining the exhibition representation of health care, which changed dramatically in the early 20th century, we will explore the problem of how the institutional system of care was shaped in the semi-periphery. In the course of the lecture, we will examine exhibitions that presented healthy and sick bodies in early twentieth-century Hungary. Who were they about and which groups were excluded? What happened to women, both as doctors and patients? What can we understand about the ethnicisation of the medical profession through contemporary health exhibitions? How was the disciplined healthy worker portrayed in the exhibition space? How can we explain that, although Maria Theresa banned witch trials, more than 150 years later in 1927 a grand exhibition was held on ‘quackery’, witches and the homeopathy that went with it?
Eszter Őze is an art historian and cultural researcher. Her research interests include early 20th century art theory and museology. Since 2020 she has been teaching at the Department of Art Theory at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, is a research fellow at the Central European Research Institute for Art History (KEMKI) and a member of the Helyzet Műhely.
The HODWORKS company was founded in 2007 by Adrienn Hód. The ensemble works with freelance artists and is active both in the Hungarian and international contemporary dance scene. The core dancers of the troupe have been working together for years in varying constellations. The performances mark unknown, boundary-pushing directions, often dealing with the physicality of the completely stripped human body. The content of their works is characterized by a subtle movement between an abstract appearance and a concrete, often verbalized meaning. www.hodworks.hu
We explore the ambivalence of institutionalised care on the everyday body. The performance pieces are situated on the borderline between self-determination, vulnerability and intrusive care. How can the idea of the aestheticised body survive in the shadow of illness?The interplay of textures, qualities and boundaries between the image of the sick and the healthy body are the starting point for a movement exploration.
Performers in the HODWORKS thematic and site-specific performance:
Károly Tóth, Jessica Simet, Imola Kacsó, Márton Gláser
Concept and choreography by Adrienn Hód, in collaboration with Jessica Simet.
Music composition by Rozália Mákó.
Duration of the dance performance: 25-30 minutes.
The performance will be recorded.
The event was supported by: the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Erste Stiftung, NKA, Off Foundation