Two students have won this year’s Deák Erika Grant

Date: 2023.09.19

Design Theory MA student Eszter Sára Szabó earned the grant with her exhibition concept developed for beyond galleries, while Art and Design Management MA student Natasa Tereh and Sebestyén Teodor Bárány received the accolade for an impressive showcase designed for the MOME Campus.

Since 2020, students of MOME’s Institute for Theoretical Studies can apply for the 1-year grant that specifically helps emerging theoreticians and curators.

The HUF 500,000 grant is awarded to a senior Design Theory MA or Art and Design Management MA student graduating in the year of submitting the application and selected by a jury consisting of university teachers and professionals. This year, the members of the jury were Gábor Ébli, Kinga German, Márton Szentpéteri és András Zwickl, in addition to founder of the grant Erika Deák.

The grant is designed to bolster the professional attitude of students and provide help for developing their diploma projects and implementing projects related to the University. For this reason, the jury provided valuable suggestions for the further development of the two winning entries splitting the grant.

Eszter Sára Szabó’s exhibition design “Recoding the body – Rethinking the role of mannequins in contemporary visual culture explores the role and the evolution of the meaning of mannequins and dummies in contemporary art, as well as the closely related notion of the idealised representation of the female body in public spaces. The jury commended the entry for taking the research and the resulting exhibition out of the customary exhibition space, making the issue of the female body enmeshed in daily life more transparent. The topic was considered highly current and the inclusion of two foreign artists in addition to MOME students into her concept was also appreciated.

Natasa Tereh and Bárány Sebestyén Teodor used the experience gained and observations made during their university years to develop their MOME KIKI (abbreviation from the Hungarian “end-of-semester presentation exhibition”) as a reflection on the problem that students miss having public exhibition opportunities. The team and their entry aimed to provide exhibition opportunities outside the university to design students, offering them a chance to put themselves to the test and prove themselves to a critical audience. The jury praised the entry for recognising an actual need from students and teachers, and pushed for the first exhibition to take place in early 2024.

Erika Deák welcomed the grant recipients in autumn 2023 at a ceremony specifically organised for this occasion.

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