Judit Schuller’s artistic practice is intertwined with her life. She deals with personal, extremely intimate topics and focuses in particular on the process of remembering. She draws directly from her own experience, as well as from an inherited private archive, which she carefully deconstructs and fragments, thereby highlighting the impossibility of recreating and comprehending family history.
Using a poetic and subtle visual language, she creates fresh meanings and stories to reflect on her own identity, interpersonal relationships and connections to the wider social context. She expresses herself through photography, text and installations, her projects are long-lasting and related to life-changing events such as the loss of a loved one. She deals with the grieving process in several of her works (Memory Theatre, 2015–2019; Since My Grandfather the Poet Is Dead, 2023), dedicated to her grandfather, Imre Schuller, a filmmaker and dedicated archaeologist of his own genealogy, which he used to preserve the traces of the Holocaust victims. The artist transforms her family trauma from a process of remembering into a state of active oblivion, where memory is preserved, but at the same time allows the carer of the archive to live on.
She also presents pieces of the archive in a project specially conceived for the Likovni salon Gallery, where loss flows into birth. The experience of motherhood is at the heart of her solo project, entitled Mothers on the Himalayas. The core of the exhibition is a written reflection on transitioning into motherhood and moving towards life through mourning. The exhibition addresses the ambivalence of motherhood, the conflict between personal experience and motherhood as a political and social institution, a subject on which the American poet and writer Adrienne Reich has written extensively. [1] In the title of the exhibition, the artist suggests how becoming a mother under the weight of societal expectations is akin to conquering a hard-to-reach goal, as the daily toil and effort of care work dissipates into a repetitive cycle, and it seems complicated to discuss feelings of exhaustion and the experience of isolation and solitude. She wonders how to bypass the cultural idealisation of motherhood and remain with her own direct experience, to archive it and to establish a dialogue with the experiences of other mothers (Mothers, photography, 2017). She marks the transition into a new role in life, flooded with a multiplicity of different feelings and emotions, by writing texts, documenting daily rituals (Milk Labels, 2025; Frozen and Defrosted Mother Milk, 2025) and temporary workspaces (Temporary Desks, a series of photographs, 2025). The works were created during the artist’s residency in Celje, during a longer stay in Vienna and at home in Budapest, when she sought moments of solitude away from home – in libraries and parks – where she could briefly devote herself to art. Among other things, she is also curious about how parenthood influences artistic practice and how accessible, inclusive and supportive the art system is towards young families, especially towards artists who choose motherhood. Thus, the installation adds a new purpose to the gallery space and dedicates a play corner for the youngest visitors and an exhibition of drawings, designed in collaboration with illustrator Rebecca Molnár.
Judit Flóra Schuller (Budapest, 1991) holds a master’s degree in photography from Aalto University in Helsinki, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. She regularly exhibits internationally and participates in artist residencies around the world. She received the Modem Art Award in 2018.
The Celje Regional Museum– Center for Contemporary Arts
Supported by: Municipality of Celje
Curator: Maja Hodošček
Text: Maja Hodošček
[1] Adrienne Reich: Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, WW Norton & Co, 2021
