András D. Hajdú – Cataracta

András D. Hajdú was born in 1981 in Budapest. He earned a degree in English Literature and wrote his thesis on American war photography. He currently works as a freelance photographer, a lecturer in the Photo Reporting Department of Budapest Metropolitan University, and Nikon’s ambassador to Hungary. His work has earned him twenty-eight awards at the Hungarian Press Photo Competition, including three grand prizes.

In 2020, his Congo series – which is the subject of the current exhibition – won Second Prize in the prestigious American Pictures of the Year International competition in the category of “Local News Picture Story”. In 2015, he won First Prize in the “Feature Pictures Story” category of the same competition. He was awarded the Pécsi József Photography Grant three times, the Robert Bosch Foundation Grant in 2013, and the Hégető Honorka Multimedia Grand Prize twice. In 2018, he received the Prize for Quality Journalism for a complex series of multimedia articles.

Over the past 15 years, he has worked around the world, from the Beijing Olympics to jazz clubs in New York to the rainforests of the Congo. More recently, he has been documenting the war in Ukraine. In addition to working in the Hungarian press, he has done photography work for clients such as National Geographic, The Telegraph, Politico, Forbes, Bloomberg, the United Nations and Tages Anzeiger.

Cataracta – Darkness is Passing

András D. Hajdú’s long-term documentary photo essay takes us to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Divided, ravaged by epidemics and humanitarian crises, the DRC is not easy to describe in its entirety. It is difficult to shine a light through the dense fabric of this country’s complex past, chaotic present and uncertain future, but András D. Hajdú, attempts to show this distant, alien, contradictory, yet fascinating world by focusing on a personal story and its broad impact.
At the heart of his story is Dr Richard Hardi, an ophthalmologist and monk who has lived and worked in Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of the East Kasai province of the DRC, for 28 years. From here, he goes on mission trips to remote corners of the county to give a chance to patients who live up to 800 kilometres from the eye centre.
András D. Hajdú first joined the mission as a photographer and documentary film-maker in 2015, and has since spent extended periods of time in the DRC on three occasions.