Description
Memento is a limited edition book published with the support from Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center. It includes the poem "A Sedimental Glossary" specifically written for this album by the internationally acclaimed writer Peter Nadas.
Five years later Péter Kollányi’s poetic images of the red mud catastrophe remind us to recall one of the most frightening environmental disasters. On a tranquil October day at Ajka alumina plant in Hungary, a dyke suddenly burst and 1 million cubic metres of toxic red mud poured out of the storage pond, causing the immediate evacuation of two villages. Residents had only a few minutes to leave and most of them could never return home. The mud painted everything with all shades of red – what remained was solely chaos and silence.
For over a year the Hungarian documentary photographer had shot images of the ghost villages before the abandoned houses were knocked down. His award-winning photo series systematically pursued to find vanishing marks of human existence, creating an elegiac refrain between the post- apocalyptic view and passing life.
