Researchers’ Night at Blinken OSA Archivum

On the 30th anniversary of the regime change, and in conjunction with CEU’s Researchers’ Night programs, the Researchers’ Night at Blinken OSA Archivum will focus on different projects (exhibitions, online platforms, etc.) that address the question of the heritage of the turbulent years around 1989.

Program
Kristóf Nagy – Márton Szarvas, “Left Turn, Right Turn: Artistic and Political Radicalism of late Socialism in Hungary // The Orfeo and the Inconnu Groups”
Presentation, September 27, 2019, 7 p.m.

In conjunction with the exhibition “Left Turn, Right Turn: Artistic and Political Radicalism of late Socialism in Hungary // The Orfeo and the Inconnu Groups”, opening at the Blinken OSA Archivum on October 3, 2019, the curators will briefly present the research behind the exhibition. The Orfeo group, active in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Inconnu group, active in the 1980s, both attempted to combine artistic and political radicalism. The exhibition and the lecture that introduces it explore the possibilities that these groups had within the framework of existing socialism, guided by their own artistic and political agendas towards a sometimes left-wing, sometimes right-wing critique of existing socialism.

Márton Szarvas (1990)
PhD student in Sociology and Social Anthropology at CEU. In his doctoral research, he investigates the role of the state in the production of culture through the transformation of public cultural institutions in Salgótarján and Mezőkövesd after 1990. Member of the Helyzet Műhely.

Kristóf Nagy (1991)
PhD student in Sociology and Social Anthropology at CEU. His research focuses on the transformation of public cultural funding systems from the 1970s to the present. Member of the Helyzet Műhely.

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October, 1989 – Selected photos from the POLARCH (Political Archive)
Photo exhibition, September 27 – November 5, 2019

“I have founded the POLARCH political photo archive in 1987 to compile the documentary photos I was making at the time at events the official press had not published photos about, only manipulative, distorted content at best.

With my pictures, I strived to document the actual happenings, and to accurately mediate them to people isolated from information. This exhibition presents a selection from the period between October 22 and November 4, 1989.” (Éva Kapitány)

The exhibition on the first floor of the Archivum is open from Tuesday to Sunday between 10am and 6pm. Admission is free of charge.

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Will There be a 1989?
Interactive mini-exhibition, guided tours, September 27, 2019, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the regime change, on March 14, we launched our website, which is a continuation of the project “Was there a 1989?”, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. The online collection has been expanded with new—primarily visual and audiovisual—content found and digitized in the last ten years, and it also has been optimized for smart devices. In this way, the digital exhibition also aims to appeal to people born after 1989.

In addition to the presentation of the project “Will There be a 1989?”, the Researchers’ Night will also feature an interactive mini-exhibition: a selection of objects from the collection, presented by colleagues from the Archives.

The mini-exhibition will be open free of charge in the first-floor gallery of Blinken OSA Archivum on Researchers’ Night.

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Blinken OSA ARchivum in the Goldberger House

House tours, September 27, 2019, 9 pm. and 10 p.m

The Goldberger House, an industrial monument is an exhibition hall and archives in a historic building. On the occasion of the Researcher’s Night, we open its basement, which holds records of the fieldwork that underpinned Radio Free Europe's broadcasts during the Cold War, as well as collections of human rights documents.