no bread for us at men’s tables

ongoing since 2018

No Bread for Us at Men’s Tables explores the rules and boundaries women and queer people navigate under both dictatorships and modern societies. The project grew out of Captured Liberties (ongoing since 2018), where I examined Salazar-era womanhood through the personal story and family photo archive of Maria Teresa Braz. In No Bread for Us at Men’s Tables, the scope expands to present-day Hungary, combining portraits and interview excerpts from women and LGBTQ+ individuals of diverse backgrounds who shared their experiences with me. In both series, my photographs are juxtaposed with archival images and excerpts from the seminal feminist literary collection New Portuguese Letters (published and banned in 1972).

main exhibitions:

2024: No Bread For Us (with Rita GT) Gallery Liget, Budapest, (curator: Veronika Molnár)
2024: Our Parallel Universes, winter group exhibition at Inda Gallery, Budapest (curator: Zsolt Kozma)

At 32, I went to Slovakia to be sterilised, because I don’t want children.

In this country, once a woman turns forty, she becomes invisible — as if she no longer exists. That’s something I will always fight against.

For me, queer identity means being unapologetically myself, while also being conscious of my place in the queer community and its needs.

There is no place for us at the men’s table in this country — or if there is, it comes at the cost of immense struggle. And one can grow terribly tired of that.

A daughter of a woman I am.

In Hungary, there are institutions where the caesarean section rate is sixty, seventy, even ninety percent. Don’t tell me that nine out of ten women actually need a caesarean. That can’t be real.

The biggest question is: how can we make a difference? How can we build a community that truly fosters change and refuses to let people live in fear?

I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a human being. I am a woman.

Living in Hungary today is both a burden and an opportunity. We are constantly confronted with absurdities — news, political decisions, social ills. Sometimes you need to take a break from reality, or it will swallow you whole. Yet at the same time, this strange chaos gives rise to underground communities that could never exist in this form elsewhere. These communities are survival spaces. I have found my place here — but if I have to leave, I will do so without hesitation, because there are limits.

To me, freedom doesn’t mean having no obligations or responsibilities — it means being free from the constraints that once held you back.

My mother always cleaned when she could be seen by others. If the curtains were open and people could look in from the street, she would do the housework. She said a woman couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing.

He said that in their family, it was unthinkable not to do your duty and give birth to a grandchild. So I ended the relationship.