Ethnography Museum Presents World Press Photo

On display in the exhibition are several images by Hungarian News Agency (MTI) photographer Zsolt Szigetváry captured during anti-government protests that escalated into riots last autumn.

 

Among Szigetváry's photographs is one of an old woman watching rioters from the window of a tram. In the window, one can also see the reflection of a protester carrying the red-and-white striped flag of the House of Árpád, a symbol adopted by some of the protesters. The glance of the young man seems to meet that of old woman for a second caught on film. The image shows a dramatic moment that says much about the complexity of the situation.

 

Another image, by the award-winning Spencer Platt, shows an entourage of beautiful young women in a red car against a backdrop of destroyed homes in Lebanon. One is taking a picture of the destruction with her mobile phone. Another holds a cloth over her mouth and nose against the smell of the place.

 

In an image by Per-Adams Petterson, a nine-year-old girl holds a cigarette in one hand - clearly a well-learned habit - while another girl, who is not much older, rubs gel into her hair. The girls are the sex workers of Congo, orphaned, homeless and for sale starting at a dollar.

An image by the American photographer Nina Bergman shows the wedding photograph of a US marine, disfigured in a suicide bombing in Iraq, next to his beautiful wife.

 

World Press Photo is an extensive mirror on the modern world, an event important to both visual culture and historical scholarship. It may be stated without exaggeration that the exhibit is one of the most popular cultural events in Budapest, the Museum of Ethnography writes on its homepage.

 

World Press Photo is an independent non-profit organisation founded in the Netherlands in 1955 with the objective of supporting and promoting the work of professional photojournalists around the world. Over the years it has become an independent forum for photographic journalism in general, as well as a promoter of the free and unrestricted flow of information.

 

In achieving these aims, World Press Photo holds an annual photography competition, the largest and most prestigious in the world. Winning pictures are put on tour and are viewed by over a million people in thirty-five countries.

 

The exhibition is accompanied by a yearbook in seven languages that serves simultaneously as an exhibition catalogue and an intriguing independent document. As the organisation observes developments in the field of photojournalism and organises its regular events, greater emphasis is given each year to educational programmes.

 

The Museum of Ethnography is located at Kossuth Lajos tér 12, across the square from Parliament. In order to accommodate the large number of visitors expected to see the World Press Photo 2007 exhibition, the museum will be open every day of the week, including Monday.

 

Author: Judit Csáki