Sentinels of Budapest
Budapest is like an old aristocratic lady that lives with her memories of past glories and beauty in one of the crumbling villas along the grand boulevards. Every corner of her house invokes a memory of some long-forgotten story that is hidden in the cobwebs of her mind. Those stories along with their secrets need to stay inside the semi-dark rooms and keep company to the old lady.
The Sentinels of Budapest is a project of capturing the architectural elements that represent mythical guardians in many buildings in the city. Herculean in size in most cases, they seem to defend the residents of the old mansions from the indiscreet eyes of the passerby’s. Looking at them, majestic and immutable, one can create a new mythology imagining the innumerable stories and gossip that are hidden behind those huge doors – a mythology of empires and poverty, of riches and communism, of the quintessential battle of good and bad, rich and poor. This is the stuff of fairy tales and magic moments. And the Sentinels of Budapest make sure that they are kept safe.
These are the magical images of a search of a lost childhood and the memory of all the Jules Verne stories that set fire to my imagination – a meta-modern personal diary of urban exploration.
