Artist Name: Dániel Szalai
Residency Dates: April – May 2026
Born: 1991
Hometown: Budapest, Hungary
Lives & Works: Budapest, Hungary
URL: danielszalai.com | Instagram: @daniel_szalai
Education:
2026 – DLA in Multimedia Art, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary
2019 – MA in Photography, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary
2019 – Photography (Exchange Student), University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria
2012 – BA in Art and Design Theory, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary
2012 –Integrated Design (Exchange Student), Köln International School of Design, Cologne, Germany
Bio/Statement:
Dániel Szalai is the winner of the 2025 ACAX award.
Dániel Szalai is a Hungarian visual artist and researcher. His work explores the relationship between humans and animals, reflecting on social, political and ecological anomalies. Due to the burdens of our shared technobiopolitical reality, domesticated animals play a central role in Szalai’s work. By examining how we treat these animals, he seeks to address not only our relationship with nature, but also to question what it means to be subjected to human systems of control and, in doing so, to challenge the status quo. In recent years, Szalai has focused on intensive dairy farming and precision agriculture. Using the modern dairy cow as a paradigm of contemporary civilization, he has investigated the various technologies that capitalism uses to exploit the reproductive functions of non-human females. His most recent work addresses the invisible labour of breeding bulls in industrial animal husbandry, examining themes of masculinity, monstrosity and domestication.
His recent exhibitions include Unleash Your Herd’s Potential, Yeast Photo Festival, Matino, Italy (2025); Leopold Bloom Art Award 2025, Kiscelli Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary; Novogen. Can Reon, Tiana, Spain (2025), and (in)visible labor / (in)visible structures, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (2024). Szalai has received numerous awards, including the Carte Blanche Award from Paris Photo and the Picto Foundation in 2018, as well as the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award in 2019. His work is in the permanent collection of Fondazione Orestiadi, Gibellina, Italy. Dániel Szalai has participated in several residencies, such as Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (2024) and Cité internationale des arts, Paris, France – Budapest Gallery Artist Exchange Program (2023). Novogen by Dániel Szalai was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2021.The monograph was selected for Best Dutch Book Design in 2022 and was shortlisted for the Author Book Award at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2022.
Support: Dániel Szalai’s residency is made possible with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
