Artists: Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing
Title: I SURFACED FROM A DEEP, SWAMPY SLEEP
Curator: Júlia Salamon
Venue: Vajda Lajos Studio, Szentendre
Photos: Balázs Deim
Sound installation: Rozi Mákó
In their exhibition at the basement gallery of the Vajda Lajos Studio in Szentendre (Hungary), lutum (Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing) continue their ongoing artistic research into early childhood socialization, school as a secondary social environment, exclusionary and abusive dynamics within children’s communities, and the ways experiences of isolation, violence, and shame can persist into adulthood. These themes unfold throughout the installation in a subtle, metaphorical, and poetic manner.
The exhibition title is borrowed from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963). Another key point of reference is the dual ecology of the floodplain: the layered processes of decay and decomposition unfolding beneath the surface, and the emergence of new forms above the waterline. Within lutum’s installations, soft and rigid, ephemeral and static material qualities – adobe, sand, glass, textile, and paper – are placed into dialogue with one another.
Lungs expanding again after a state of oxygen deprivation.
The dramaturgy of the exhibition draws partly from archaic narratives and feminist readings of fairy tales, in which immersion, disorientation, or bodily loss appear not as fixed traumatic states, but as transitional conditions from which new inner resources may emerge.
The basement gallery of the Vajda Lajos Studio plays a central role in this context. The vaulted, chapel-like space of the former storage room, together with the proximity of the Danube, closely resonates with lutum’s introspective and sediment-like installation practice.
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lutum – Stella Koleszár & Eszter Metzing“Lutum” is a Latin noun meaning sludge, mud, or clay. It is also the name of the artistic duo formed by Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing. Since 2022, they have collaborated alongside their individual practices spanning applied arts and autonomous visual art. Their first joint exhibition, Born of Slime and Decay, was presented at ISBN Gallery in Budapest. Their most recent collaborative project, Fragile Sanity, was exhibited as part of the group exhibition After Laughter in Graz (2025), and is also included in the present exhibition alongside new works created specifically for the Vajda Lajos Studio.
The dialogue between their works is grounded in the consistent use of collage-based thinking: the simultaneous conceptual and sensory use of contrasting materials, including glass produced through different technological processes, adobe, cotton, patent leather, and paper. Their practice is further shaped by an interest in the archaic, fairy tales and their psychological dimensions – particularly in relation to female experience – as well as by shared formative experiences connected to the landscapes and Danube floodplains of Southern Transdanubia and Mohács.
Their collaboration is further deepened by the fact that both artists are currently members of the aqb studio community.
