Időszaki kiállítása: Kádár Emese - The Unrisen Sun // Jégbe zárt nap (2026. jún. 21. - szept. 6.)
We warmly welcome everyone interested to our exhibition titled “Emese Kádár – The Unrisen Sun // Sun Trapped in Ice,” running from June 21 to September 6, 2026!
Schedule
About the Exhibition:
This solo exhibition by Debrecen-born visual artist Emese Kádár explores the process of mourning through the lens of contemporary art. While the artist’s earlier works focused on digital memories and contemporary rituals of mourning, the pieces in her new series, titled *Ghost Traces*, approach the process of coming to terms with loss from a more lyrical, personal perspective.
The starting point for the exhibition *The Unrisen Sun // Sun Trapped in Ice* was the experience of a summer visit to a cemetery: the July heat and the blinding sunlight stood in sharp contrast to the frozen state of mourning. From this experience emerges the exhibition’s world—evoking a timeless sunrise, at once cold and warm—which portrays the tension between the preservation of memories and the desire to let go.
The series on display at MODEM Project Space evokes a symbolic, ice-frozen landscape where the sun and frost appear as opposing forces. Here, sunlight does not necessarily signify clarity or progress: its intense light instead blinds us and lingers as a ghostly afterimage.
In addition to woven textiles, Emese Kádár also experiments with the technique of needle felting. In her works, symbols of digital memory—such as bookmarks, the “save” button, or the play buttons for audio files—are intertwined with frosty natural elements and symbols of mourning rituals.
The exhibition draws on personal experiences but also raises broader questions about digital heritage and the preservation of memories. The exhibition’s Arctic atmosphere also raises questions about the data centers buried in the permafrost of Svalbard: what do we preserve at all costs, what do we bury, and what is it time to bring to the surface—and then let go of?
Curator: Vanda Sárai
We warmly welcome all interested visitors!
Center of Modern and Contemporary Art - Modemart
“The MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art is a cultural institution with international connections, which has two main missions: the exhibition of the most significant 20th century Hungarian and international works of art, and the representative presentation of the current schools and progressive efforts of the contemporary visual art and culture as well as most respected Hungarian and international artists.”
The MODEM intends to realise those ambitious goals that the institution has set for itself during the start-up period.
With one of the best infrastructural conditions in East-Central-Europe, the MODEM is to be an essential part not only of the visual art scene but the whole cultural sphere. The art center is suitable to represent that the culture has high priority for the institutes and the whole town. Therefore, one of our basic goals is to make the MODEM a wider intellectual space and forum to where not only the spectators but also the artists return regularly with pleasure.
The primary point of view of the MODEM is the reconstruction of its character in the Hungarian art life, with the cooperation with new elements which strengthen the relation with the local and regional community as well as with the broader international cultural scene in a longer term perspective and form and run a multilevel and manifold network. We aim to create a brand new narrative which change the public opinion about the role of the contemporary art and make the visual art the part of the everyday life. An important goal of our programme is to represent the diversity of the contemporary art and to display the attendant art in different forms. In the selection of thematic exhibitions, not only the visual art gets into focus but the architecture and social science as well.
The Antal‒Lusztig Collection also plays a major role in the MODEM’s life, since it is permanent part of the ground floor exhibition room. The items of the collection are presented by newly arranged exhibitions twice a year. Furthermore, the professional and accurate cataloguing of the collection has started simultaneously as well.
