Conversations around the kitchen table: Kincső Bede

Join us for a conversation between curator Catherine Troiano and Kincső Bede, exploring Bede’s photographic practice and its intersection with questions of belonging and legacy.

A Hungarian visual artist from Romania, Bede is fascinated by the communist past of her homeland. Her work evokes a personal view on collective histories that carved a deep chasm between generations: that of her parents, who lived through communism and the regime change, and that of Bede, who inherited their stories, experiences and their trauma. Bede’s practice delves into the complexities of cultural heritage, in a bid to move closer to her parents and the versions of their lives dominated by the voice, fears, desires, secrets and paranoias of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his Securitate.

In this conversation with Troiano, Bede will reflect on her experience as part of the Székely Hungarian minority in Transylvania, Romania, and how photography has mediated her view of tradition, self-definition and faith: ‘my parents best-kept secret was their beliefs, their language, and their souls. This is me.’

The event is organised in collaboration with the V&A on the occasion of the symposium (29th November, V&A South Kensington). It also celebrates the recent publication of Bede’s monograph Porcelain and Wool (Hectic Books, 2025). The book’s title symbolises a delicate balance—porcelain representing fragility and refinement, while wool conveying warmth and resilience. Bede’s photographic style weaves together these contrasts, employing intimate storytelling to question inherited cultural codes while reimagining her place within them. Her work captures a tension between pride and critique, juxtaposing rural environments with modern elements to create an interplay between past and present that is is central to Bede’s practice. Through scattered vignettes of traditional motifs and reinterpreted family stories, viewers are invited to assemble the fragmented pieces into a cohesive whole. 

After the conversation, we are holding a casual meet and greet, where attendees will have the chance to buy the book and get it signed.

Kincső Bede (b.1995) is a Hungarian visual artist from Romania, who grew up in a small city in Transylvania. She is fascinated by the communist past of her homeland, the power of the leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, the control exercised by the security agency Securitate, and how this history is passed down across the generations. Currently, Bede lives and works in Budapest, Hungary and she studied at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. She is part of the Studio of Young Photographers. In 2020 she won the photography scholarship of the Association of Hungarian Photographers. In the same year she was among the winners of Carte Blanche Students, a scholarship founded by Paris Photo. The works of the four winners were exhibited at the Parisian Gare du Nord. Her series, titled ’’Three Colours I Know in This World’’ was chosen for the 10 New Talent 2020 programme by the curators of BredaPhoto Festival and was exhibited in The Netherlands. She has exhibited in several cities of Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the US. In 2021, thanks to TOBE Gallery, she exhibits at Unseen Amsterdam and she is selected for Paris Photo fair's Curiosa sector, curated by Shoair Mavlian. In 2022, her photographs are exhibited at PhotoVogue Festival Milan. In 2023, she participates in the show “Self on Stage” in Galeria Anita Beckers Frankfurt. Anthony Vaccarello curates an exhibition for her at Saint Laurent Rive Droite, Paris and at YSL Beverly Hills LA, and on the same occasion YSL publishes her fanzine. Bede is nominated for the Esterhazy Art Award and thus exhibits in Ludwig Museum Budapest. In 2024, hECTIC bOOKs launches her first photobook, displaying her œuvre to date. In 2025, she presents her large-scale solo show: The Art of Pista in the frame of OFF-Biennale Budapest. The works of Kincső Bede are now part of collections of several important European institutions like: Victoria & Albert Museum - London, Hungarian National Gallery - Budapest, MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art - Debrecen. Her photos are regularly in the printed press, such as The Art Newspaper, Vogue, European Photography Magazine, Another Man, Der Greif, Gup Magazine and The Steidz, Hotpotatonews, Grandmama’s Print etc.

From 2020 she is represented by TOBE Gallery, in Budapest.

Dr Catherine Troiano is Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She co-curates the programme in the V&A Photography Centre, spanning the nineteenth-century to contemporary and digital practices, and has curated several displays in these major new spaces since the Photography Centre launched across two phases in 2018 and 2023. She was previously Assistant Curator of Photography at the V&A and Curator of National Photography Collections at the National Trust. She publishes and presents regularly on aspects of contemporary practice, digital culture, and photographic or institutional history, and she holds a PhD in Visual Culture from the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester.

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Host or Publisher Liszt Institute - Hungarian Cultural Centre London