Madame l’Ambassadeur welcomes the Hungarian poet, artist, translator and performer Kinga Toth as a resident at the message salon embassy.
Kinga Toth is a nomad of art, travelling between languages, places and genres. The writer writes her poetry and texts in Hungarian, German and English. For three weeks, the artist lives and works in the 25hours Hotel Langstrasse, moving into a studio with a generous view, overlooking the railway tracks of the new Zollstrasse cooperative, Zurich’s Kreis 5 district and Milchbuck. And every day there is a queue of people directly in front of the studio window: unnoticed by most city dwellers, the same spectacle takes place here day after day. People queue for hours for free, donated food.
This daily ritual has become established over the last two years of the pandemic. Sister Ariane, the well-known Catholic nun who cares for people on the margins of society in the Langstrasse neighbourhood, organised a free food drop-off with volunteers during the first lockdown. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, up to 200 people have been queuing every day, waiting patiently for many hours until food and hygiene products are distributed.
The situation in front of the artist’s studio, the misery in the midst of prosperity and the war refugees cannot be ignored. Kinga Toth writes, hammering away at the typewriter keys, with a view of the distant world of train tracks and the queue of people outside the window.
” … this is not a made-up prayer not an old lament sandwiches
i’ll pack one for you three for the others in the neighbours’ cars
with which we drive over and change the language speak
russian my son ask him how the other one is
what his mother has packed for him, whether he has the same shoe size …. “*
“.. ez már
nem kitalált imádság nem ösi siratóének szendvicset
pakolokegyet neked hármat a másikba a szomszéd
autóba amivel átmegyünk váltjuk a nyelvet beszélj
oroszul fiam kérdezd meg hogy van a másik neki
mit pakolt az anyja ugyanakkora-e a lába mint a tied … “*
*Excerpt from “s zendvics / beim sandwich”
At the end of Kinga Toth’s residency, message salon embassy is publishing a zine with the poem “szendvics / beim sandwich”, written in Zurich, in Hungarian and German.
With the support of the City of Zurich Culture and 25hours Hotel Langstrasse Zurich