KESERUE Zsolt
National Textbook, 2010–2022

Project documentation; dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
© Keserue Zsolt
Photo: József ROSTA © Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art

The National Textbook is a performative project based on research and collaboration, which ran from 2010 to 2019, but will continue to be presented in accordance with different contexts. The selection now presented at the museum has been created with the specific framework of this exhibition in mind. This complex project reveals the nationally determined character of previously objective history writing through a research – controlled partly by volunteers and partly by chance – that has resulted in the National Textbook, which is in fact a collage. It is a collage of information, opinions and frameworks brought together by an extensive international collecting project. It presents Hungarian historical events that have been included in the textbooks of other countries, revealing not only what is considered important to mention about Hungarian history in a given country, but also the differences in perspectives presented by these books. The historical traumas that seem obvious to us are minor or even unworthy of mention from the point of view of other nations. Logically, the book was later augmented with a collection of stereotypes, where the participants compiled a collection of drawings, videos, animations, scale models and videos based on less canonised, everyday sources and oral accounts. During certain phases of the project, data was collected and processed at different workshops (e.g. at the Sziget Festival). Throughout the project, Keserue worked with groups of mainly students using the participatory method of critical pedagogy, initiating and catalysing the exploration and revealing of traumas.

TIMÁR Katalin