Join us for a conversation between artists Adél Koleszár, Alejandra Aragón and Esteban de la Torre at Liget Gallery on Monday, June 24 at 7 PM. The three artists will discuss the larger socio-political context of the current exhibition ‘Only have faith’, focusing on the violence Mexico has experienced in the past two decades, including the war on drugs and legacies of colonialist extractivism in the region.

The conversation will be held in English.
Seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis.

“To address Adel Koleszar’s Only Have Faith it is necessary to contextualize the project within the efforts of photography artists to make sense of the type of violence Mexico has experienced in the last two decades.

The mainstream media, under the pretext of ‘informing’, turned the gruesome images of the destruction, the victims, and their bodies into content for clickbait. Photojournalism became rapacious and competitive as demand for these images increased from agencies and international organizations. The market of photography found a niche for their incorporation of identity politics into their agendas through violence which from all fronts, has become a commodity and looked after symbolic capital.

Only have faith is the result of immersing in the culture, an effort to understand the complexities of this reality. A reality that might seem far to you as well, but my city Juarez, Veracruz where this project was produced, and the truths that other exploited countries live under this capitalist dystopia will eventually reach us all.”
––Alejandra Aragón

Adél Koleszár (1986) is originally from Hungary, where she graduated with a Master’s in Fine Art Photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Fine and Applied Arts, after receiving a BA degree in Social Sciences in Budapest. Since 2013, she has worked between Hungary and Mexico, where she arrived in 2013 thanks to a Mexican Governmental Artist Residency Program. Her project on contemporary religions in Mexico was selected as a finalist for Magnum Photos & Ideastap Photography Award and won the Budapest Portfolio Prize. The same year she was the solo exhibitor of the Discovery Show section of the Fotofestiwal Lodz, and her book published from the series „New Routes of Faith” was shortlisted for the Unseen Photography Dummy Award. In 2017 she got shortlisted for the Women in Photography (WIPNYC) Grant & Mentor Program. Her work was exhibited and published widely in her country and internationally, in Berlin, Mexico City, New York, Arles, and Vienna, and was featured on Foam Spotlight, Vice Mexico, Fotografia Magazine, Der Grief. In 2018, she was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass, was featured in the British Journal of Phorography Ones to Watch selection, was nominated for the Paul Foam HUF Award, and was a fellow of the Robert Capa Grand Prize.

Alejandra Aragón is from Ciudad Juárez, México, through photography, video, objects, performative and collaborative strategies Alejandra explores the intersections between territory, body, and identity from a de-colonial and intersectional position. She was part of the Image Center Photography Seminar in 2017. Member of the Joop Swart Master Class 2020, nominated for the Oskar Barnack award in 2021. The same year obtained the Border Change Narrative Grant from NALAC in U.S. In 2022 won the Latin American Sony World Photography Awards and entered the National System of Creators of Mexico.

Esteban de la Torre is a sound and new media artist born in Mexico City based in Budapest, Hungary. His practice focuses on defining thresholds and signal paths within a system in order to incite emerging environments into existence. Working between drone music and expanded psycho-acoustic minimalism he strongly pivots on the physicality of spatialized sound. Cofounder of the EJTECH collective, where his role as a sound and metamedia artist result into large scale installations, hyperphysical interfaces, multichannel sculptures, and programmable matter. He has performed, and his works have been exhibited at the Hirshhorn Smithsonian, Japan Media Arts Festival, Ludwig Museum, Holon Museum, Rewire Festival, Cyfest, EMAF, LOM, Prague Quadriennal among others