Éva Beatrix Bora

Mental mapping is a socio-geographic method of data collection used primarily in urban studies, urban planning and urban rehabilitation, while urban anthropology often uses it to gain a better understanding of social phenomena related to urban living (e.g. segregation).

The theory itself is based on the perception that people who have some kind of experience of a given city (where they live or stay for a shorter or longer period) have a rather different picture of the city's structure compared to that provided by maps prepared by cartographers.

Consequently, by using the method of mental mapping we would like to find out what elements influence the image of space created in relatively heterogeneous urban societies and what phenomena created and reproduced by the interaction of the various social groups of a city draw the mental map of the city.

Mental mapping may be compelling for researching the artworld for a number of reason.

Among other things you may ask firstly what the emergence of various art scenes (museum buildings and public monuments for municipal, political representation; for-profit and non-profit galleries etc.) or ’spontaneous’ public art works (such as street art, public art etc.) means for various people in a city, and how it affects the everyday life of people living there.
Secondly, the art scene may be viewed as a symbol of a city: not solely because the practice of art is often a cultural act related to the city, rather because the art world is a social scene, which creates a system consisting of elements similar to the ’institutional structure’ of a city (buildings, functions, public spaces, roles, everyday experience etc.) and their relations.
Interaction between artists, works of art, curators, the audience etc. constitutes a network. Roles, functions, opportunities, interests and communication channels that redefine and recreate themselves are associated to the elements of this network.  This scene has got its own system of logic; notwithstanding, it cannot exist without the current social, political, economic and cultural environment.

I would like to find out what experience could be gained in the course of interdisciplinary research, where an analogy (city) and a process (mental mapping) of urban studies are linked to the aspects of sociology and art theory.

In addition, primarily I would like to understand what knowledge (mental map) has been gained of each other’s art world in the countries of  the ’TRANZIT’, where the socio-historic foundations (Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) are similar in a number of aspects, however, the recent past, the present and the related experiences are different. I am thinking of the knowledge of various phenomena and procedures rather than works of art. This mutual understanding could promote a deeper dialogue among the participants (artists, curators, critics and other art professionals) in the future. 

In the first phase I will map Budapest (Hungary) from the point of view of Vienna (Austria). I have chosen Vienna since it provides references for all other Central and Eastern European countries including Hungary as its social and political system, which is different from that of Hungary, did not stand in the way of art (or at least not as it happened in Hungary). Therefore Vienna has different experience as far as institutes and independent art initiatives are concerned. As the Budapest scene is the most familiar one for me, it seems obvious to explore the relationship of these two places in the first phase.

In order to get the most useful results, I will use structured interview as a researching method. The possible respondents are artist, curators and art professionals living in Austria whose work enables them to have an insight of the Hungarian contemporary art and its institutional background.

I hope that using an external point of view in this research will enable us not only to communicate new information about an art world where we gain experience every day, but also to have a better understanding of the art scene in Austria. During these interviews attention will also be paid to countries beyond Central and Eastern Europe as well as the TRANZIT itself.

Nevertheless, I hope that further ideas will surface during the course of research that could contribute to the improvement of communication between the art and participants of the art world in these four countries, enable us to understand each other, cooperate more effectively and build a network of the participants of the Central and Eastern European art world.

I spent two month in 2006 (May-June) in MuseumsQuartier, q21 as a participant of the Artist-in-Residency program. My project has two parts:

First, when I applied for the residency program, I wondered how the international art word thought about the Hungarian art scene, therefore I did a research which was based on an – about one-two hour long – structured interview-series. I met 12 participants from Vienna and Graz (i.e. gallerists, artists, art historian, director etc.) who had any connection with Hungarian art scene (i.e. organised common projects, had an exhibition, lived in Budapest, planned to work together with Hungarian artists as a curator).

The aim of my project was to get to know the Austrian point of view of Hungarian art scene. The questions of interview was about how the member of Austrian art scene think of Hungarian artists, curators, exhibitions, art positions in international art world. Who were the most important actors of the Hungarian art scene? Why they liked / or did not like working together artists/curators from Hungary? What was their opinion? Etc.
I asked the participants to forget the politeness and tell me the real opinions and experiences. I tried to find the widest pattern from the Austrian art scene (age, professional, interests etc.). After the research I wrote an article about my experiences. Some interesting facts: the answers showed that Hungarian members of art scene are very open minded, friendly, but the most problem is the lack of the cooperation and the attention. The curators and the institutes were know, but the artists were not. The Loránt Hegyi (he was the director of MUMOK 1990-2000) played a very important role: his artist generation is the most known in Austria. Etc.

The second part of my project was to find interesting projects in Vienna and Graz. The cultural life really “shocked” me! :-)
During two months I saw more than 30 exhibitions, concerts, projects (i.e. MQ’s events, galleries, Ottakringer Festival, Architecture Week, public art projects, fashion show etc.). And I met a lot of people around the Word (Austria, Argentina, Norway, Slovenia, Serbia etc.)
So, the residency program was very important for me. Thank you very much!