Memento

Memento is a book of Péter Kollányi’s poetic images that capture the red mud catastrophe, one of the most frightening environmental disasters in Hungray's history. On a tranquil October day at Ajka alumina plant, 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.

Written specifically for this album, the internationally acclaimed Hungarian writer, Péter Nádas provided a lyrical opening with his text that stands at the intersection of the catastrophe’s verbal and visual aftermath, blending genres to create an encompassing whole.