(2024-ongoing)
The series explores the deep layers of identity tied to the name Emese, examining the cultural and transgenerational heritage it carries. Meaning "mother" or "little mother," the name reaches back to Hungarian origin myths: the figure of the primordial mother, impregnated by a Turul bird in a dream, is a sacred symbol of fertility and predestined motherhood. Just as the mythical Emese received the promise of her future through a dream, this photographic series functions as a form of internal, visual reflection.
At the core of the project lies a conscious and desired state of life: the preparation for motherhood. This commitment is placed into a broader context, reflecting on contemporary demographic and existential dilemmas—seeking the meaning of motherhood in an era where childbearing is increasingly delayed and global crises perpetuate a sense of uncertainty. The images record the fragile process where the sincere will for fulfillment meets external pressures and collective anxiety.
The narrative follows the logic of dreams: surreal compositions serve as projections of the subconscious, where determination and vulnerability appear as complementary visions. The series breaks away from idealized depictions of motherhood, presenting instead the phases of psychological maturation—a threshold where individual desire for freedom and archaic role-assumption strive to merge under the shadow of an uncertain future. Emese’s Dream thus becomes a visual diary of both a personal identity search and a generational quest for a path forward.
(2025-ongoing)
Every year, my mother recounts her postcard collection. Her carefully organized archive now contains over five thousand cards. Within it, I have my own category: the postcards I send her from abroad.
In 2025, however, not a single new card made it into her collection. Though I traveled halfway across the world, I couldn’t manage to address and send even one.
In my family, a postcard is far more than an image; it is a gesture. It is physical proof that I am safe, and that despite the distance, I remain rooted to home. It is one of photography’s simplest, yet most intimate forms of connection.
My travels often feel dreamlike: a transitional state, detached from everything. Sending a postcard was always the thread that pulled me back to reality—a signal sent home, anchoring me to what I temporarily left behind.
Throughout 2025, I created my own postcards. These images capture the places not as they appear on a map, but as I experienced them: ethereal, quiet, and at times completely detached from literal reality.
The narrative centers on an absence, yet it remains open: capturing a floating state where distance, disconnection, and love exist all at once.
Patience and trust games, played in pairs or alone. Playing with time.
It is difficult to reconcile a responsible, adult life with actions done solely for their own sake or for ourselves. Many of us know the familiar inner voice that asks: if something serves no practical purpose, is it still worth doing?
Emese Tóthová’s latest series explores the playfulness of adulthood, highlighting the importance of spaces and moments that allow us to experiment without high stakes and step away from daily routines. Playing, after all, is a mental state: valuable not just for its tangible outcomes or goals, but for its psychological effect on us. Games carry their own internal order; they operate under set rules whose simplicity offers a comforting contrast to the unpredictable nature of everyday life.
After moving abroad, Emese Tóthová began experimenting with practices that allowed her to explore the modularity of her living space, and, through it, herself. Adapting to and persevering in a new environment can be challenging. The home serves as a refuge where one can feel free from social expectations and cultural norms, or even subvert them. Everyday spaces and objects offer immense potential, yet spending too much time within four walls can feel claustrophobic, almost like an imprisonment. While many experienced this during the COVID-19 pandemic, a strict curfew isn't required for one's living space to feel constrained.
Tóthová responds to this state of mind through play. In her series PLAYTIME – Within the Four Walls, a room in Antwerp and an apartment in Paris become playgrounds where childhood exhilaration intersects with adult existential anxiety. She juxtaposes the challenges of daily life with games played inside the home, using a remote shutter release to capture these performative moments.
While games can teach us, they can also be unforgiving. Alongside their sense of fun and intimacy, Tóthová’s images evoke trial games where one must prove their ability: a dynamic often found in initiation rites, whether on a kindergarten playground or at an orientation camp. Games challenge our patience and disrupt our routines, serving as exercises in self-awareness. Ultimately, the exhibition invites the viewer into a light yet contemplative space, capturing both the liberating magic and the inherent ambivalence of play.
(Anna Kereszty)
(2020-2021)
“When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one….”
In September 2020, my fiancé and I moved to Hong Kong for eight months. What began as a personal journey in a foreign country became the foundation for this series as I realized how deeply this experience connected to a broader, shared reality.
During this time, the world was turned upside down by unprecedented global shifts, forcing us to adapt, grow, and plan for an uncertain future. While young adulthood is typically a time to build independence and realize childhood dreams, recent years trapped us within four walls and disrupted our paths. Even as the pandemic subsided, new challenges emerged, leaving tomorrow feeling fragile and hard to plan for.
This series explores the persistent feeling of uncertainty and the repetitive nature of adult routine, balanced alongside themes of trust, resilience, and interdependence. Navigating a foreign land during a global crisis showed me that a person’s story is rarely written alone—it is built on connection.
To navigate the weight of the present, I turned to the playfulness and perspective of my childhood. By revisiting the past, I seek to bring lightness to serious situations, using the imaginative resilience of youth to make sense of the world we face today.
(2020)
To what extent do the traumas of our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents shape our present actions and personalities? How does an ancestor’s childhood echo down through generations, and how do we begin to process our own?
When we look back on childhood, what surfaces first? Which moments earn a place in the family album, and which are quietly left out? Decades later, as we uncover these hidden correlations, how do we begin to understand and rewrite the dynamics of this "closed system"?
Reaching the point where we begin to question the past, seek the roots of our current struggles, and examine family roles requires time. It is a slow, layered process demanding both patience and empathy. Incomplete stories cannot be pieced together overnight; every person involved must remain open and willing to bridge the distance between one another.
You have to earn their trust step by step to unearth the forgotten or dismissed details needed to complete the puzzle. This is the path I have chosen: looking beyond visual memory to evoke the true, visceral feeling of childhood.
@mse_t
tothemesephoto@gmail.com
2023-2024
Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, MA in Visual Arts, Photography, BE
2018-2022
Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, BA in Photography, HU
2020-2021
City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, HK
2018-
Freelance Photographer & Videographer, Paris / Budapest / Kosice
Video production and photography for cultural institutions, art galleries, and music industry clients
2025–2026
Gallery Paris-B, Paris — Intern/Associate Curator
Curatorial projects:
András Ladocsi: There Is a Big River, 2025
Constellations: Contemporary Positions from Hungary, group show, Curator: Róna Koneczky, 2025
2021–2023
Foton Gallery, Budapest — Curator & Photographer
Organization and curation of photography exhibitions; responsible for social media channels of the gallery
2024
Playtime — Within Four Walls, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Project Room, Budapest, HU
2024
MASTERS EXPO ’24, In Situ Studio, Antwerp, BE
Contemporary Hungarian Photography 2024, Martyn Ferenc Galéria, Pécs, HU
Contemporary Hungarian Photography 2024, Eötvös10 Galéria, Budapest, HU
2022
Egyes,egyes jó lett; QContemporary Project Space, Budapest, HU
Fresh Meat; K6 Gallery, Budapest, HU
Zárt nyíltvilág; Foton Gallery, Budapest, HU
Trope; Limes Gallery, Komárno, SK
Intersections; Limes Gallery, Komárno, SK
2021
Trope; Košice, SK
Mindenütt jó, de...; MODEM’s social media project
Art Market Budapest, Foton Gallery, HU
2020
Coworking; Skurc Gallery, Budapest
2020-
FFS- Studio of Young Photographers;
2021-2023 one of the four board members of the Studio
Futures Photography Talent 2026, nominated by Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center
Athen Photo Festival 2026, shortlisted
Fotohof Magazine 2026, shortlisted
Breda Photo 2022, International Talent Program, shortlisted
FOTOHOF>CALLING Magazin, 2026
Contemporary Hungarian Photography, Association of Hungarian Photographers, Catalog, 2024