Where we’re at Juli Laczkó 4bid Gallery Amsterdam 6-7-8 December 2023
‘There, where we’re at, you can’t go to collect wood.
If you go, they’ll beat you, they’ll punish you, they’ll arrest you.
That’s no good.’
‘Where we’re at’ is an interactive installation that reflects on the similarities and differences between the global waste crisis and a specific local tradition of precarious survival in Eastern Europe. Its materials and circuits are composed of trash, its stripped copper is sensitive to the touch. It aims to provide a window into the experiences of people who engage with lomi’ as an ever so unpredictable livelihood.
Lomtalanítás is a once-a-year-only junk clearance when whole neighborhoods of Budapest, hundreds of households all simultaneously, are allowed to dispose of their bulky waste on the street to be collected. Streetscapes change into trashscapes. Lomi is the practice of going over these hills of waste the night before the collection and scavenging useful things from the bulk, a practice common in all places where lomtalanítás happens. Traditionally, lomtalanítás serves as a (partial) livelihood for people in extreme poverty. They select, transport and sell the waste by the category to several parties (recyclers, companies, village markets, etc).
This pattern is somewhat similar to the process of high-GDP countries dumping their tonnes of toxic (electronic) waste in low-GDP countries via gray-zone, semi-legal methods. Poor populations of the victim countries select, burn and sell the waste, just like the rummagers of the lomtalanítás do. Copper, aluminum, steel, lead, precious metals extracted from printed circuit boards are the most valuable in both processes. Wood is burned for heat, and some objects and tools can be resold or repaired for own use. The finding, selecting, transporting and sales of the materials happens within a one-of-a-kind informal economy with its own unwritten rules.
‘Where we’re at’ is hosted by 4Bid gallery at the OT301. 4Bid develops temporary cultures and interlinks fields of knowledge and comprehension through arts and culture. 4bid is a non-profit space that strives to bring consciousness about current social situations. On the three afternoons of the exhibition, discussions will take place with the moderation of the author Juli Laczkó and reknowled intermedia artist Eszter Ágnes Szabó. They invite you to join the conversation about the perception and journey of materials to waste and beyond, about geographical differences regarding the perception of sustainability and about the potential of an anarchist view of the Solarpunk movement.
Juli Laczkó is an Amsterdam-based media artist and critical maker, who, with her latest work, engages in a conversation about the journey of materials and the conditions that this journey creates. Her work appeared internationally from Leipzig, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Bratislava to Istanbul and Nevada in group- and solo exhibitionsl. Her research is informed by the intersection of visual arts and hacker culture. Her monograph titled ‘The Art of Hacking: Strategic Interactions between Hacker Culture and Visual Arts’ was published in 2021.