Death Hike

Video and Sound Installation, 2024

Death Hike is an immersive video installation consisting of three looped video screens and three looped sound sources. The piece was conceived of during my last trip back to Hungary. My grandmother–still alive, thankfully–was an incredibly avid hiker throughout her life. I have so many memories of hiking with her when I was young and was amazed by her knowledge about the trails, the plants, and the critters. She has this one favorite hike, and she decided many years ago that when she passes, she wants her ashes spread at the top of that hike. At the top of the mountain are gorgeous old ruins and a spectacular lookout point that I visit as a sort of pre-grieving ritual whenever I return to Hungary. I recorded sounds and images along the hike, along with footage of myself engaging the ritual with some of her embroidery thread. I used that material to create the installation, using three panels to divide the footage into three themes: Life, Ceremony, and Death. The Life and Death panels are opposite one another, with Life showing the living things I encountered, and Death showing the ruins and the spot where my grandmother wants her ashes spread. For the sound component of the installation, there are three small speakers playing three different sounds. One is an environment reference with the sound of my footstep on the hike mixed with nature sounds. Another is an atmospheric sound piece that I created using distortion pedals and playing my father’s Hungarian stringed instrument, the Citera. The last one is a recorded phone conversation with my grandmother, asking her about her love for and history with hiking. The recording is in Hungarian, which most people cannot understand, so I translated, transcribed, and printed out the conversation to hang on the walls to view before (or after) you enter the immersive video space. All three videos and all three sound recordings are different durations. Because they’re on a loop, they synch up with each other differently every time the piece is experienced

The hike itself has to do with grief and the experience of feeling the foreshadowing of an event that has yet to happen. The piece is more about the visceral experience than the logical. It is like a nonlinear dream state: it represents a memory experience because our memories are never an accurate record of reality. Grief can play with our sense of reality because the thought of a person no longer being alive feels almost absurd, and you have to grapple with that loss. The process of grief tends not to be linear, and you can become overwhelmed by it at any moment. It can be fraught with conflicting feelings. Grief interferes with your perception of reality. When you are confronted with death, it can cause you to change how you perceive things as a coping mechanism.


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Phone Call with Grandmother Transcript

Eniko: I wanted to start by asking if there are any memories from my childhood of hiking with your parents?
Nyanya: I only remember that during Easter, we always went hiking off the trails, my dad liked to go into the forest without following marked paths. So by the time we got home, we were covered in mosquito bites, nettle stings, and scratches from blackberry bushes.
Eniko: He didn't want to walk on marked trails?
Nyanya: No, he was not fond of following the crowd, he didn't let others dictate where to go.
Eniko: When did you really start hiking in the Mecsek on your own?
Nyanya: It started after the divorce, just going every week.
Eniko: Because of the divorce?
Nyanya: By then, I was already alone due to the divorce. The kids were already gone, and I had time on weekends. When you're alone, you don't know what to do. There were these open hikes, and I started attending them. The open part of the hike means that it was advertised in the newspaper by the Nature Lovers Association. So, the Baranya County Nature Lovers Association has various tour guides, and someone among the tour guides takes on the responsibility to lead the hike. On Saturdays, they usually organize an open hike here and there. It means that it is announced when they depart, which bus they take, around what time, approximately where they go, and when they'll be back. So, this appears in the newspaper, and anyone can apply, anyone can go. 
Eniko: How many people were on these?
Nyanya: Well, it varied a lot. So, it depended on the weather and the tour guide. Usually, were are around twenty, generally around twenty or so. Yes.
Eniko: Were the same people usually going?
Nyanya: Usually the same people went. Yes, but not entirely.
Eniko: And the group of women friends that you have talked about before, the ones you went hiking with, were they part of this organization?
Nyanya: That was later. We would do these individual hikes, I always planned a place we hadn't been before. There were two Marikas, one Magdi, one Zsuzsi, and before that, there were even more. But that's not the point. So, there were about ten of us, and we went there monthly. And then we went every week, not just occasionally, but every time.
Eniko: When did you start hiking with this friend group?
Nyanya: I went when my legs started hurting, and I couldn't walk as much. And then we did things like not just hiking, but either short hikes or village tours. So, we picked a village that the bus goes to, took the bus there, then walked around. There's usually a folk house, a church, beautiful buildings, and very lovely gardens in the spring. You know, in the past, the village houses were set back, and there was a fence in front, and between the fence and the wall, it was always full of flowers. We always saw the most beautiful flowers, gorgeous, beautiful flowers during this time. And then we always looked out from the back of the bus, wondering when we could come back. So, this was already at a time when my legs started hurting, and I couldn't walk twenty kilometers anymore, but before that, I walked fifty or more every day.
Eniko: I remember hearing that you repainted or painted over the trail markers on the Mecsek hikes? How did you get involved in that?
Nyanya: You know how difficult it is to paint such a thing and how many times you have to go over it until you paint everything? It was a very difficult task. Yes, it was a huge job. When I was there for open hikes, the leadership of the Nature Lovers Association changed at that time, and then I was elected secretary. I organized the open hikes for years. I started scheduling the open hikes, and then I also joined this painting. You had to walk the same section at least four times. Like, when will it dry? Go again in a week, then when the colors dry on it, then you can go again. So yes, it was not an easy task.
Eniko: I remember when I was much younger and we hiked together, and we saw younger people along the trails. Everyone knew you. And then I asked you, who was that? And you wouldn’t always remember their names.
Nyanya: Well, yes, basically, everyone knew me as a secretary and organizer. Once a month, I led the Tour Guides Club. We gave lectures or asked someone to give a lecture. I organized the Mecsek 50 performance hike for years, which your mother participated in at one point. She was a checkpoint attendant.
Eniko: What is the Mecsek 50?
Nyanya: They are called performance hikes. These can be from 20 km to 100 km. So that means you cover a 50-kilometer route in the Mecsek in one day, you have to register in the morning to reserve a spot and get a card or paper that tells you exactly which route to take. Not just roughly, but exactly which one to take. And there are checkpoints with attendants at various locations. So when a hiker shows up, they stamp the card to show they've been there, and then they can move on to the next checkpoint. There were places where we had cookies or offered sweets. At these checkpoints, everyone could get water. 
Eniko: Why do you like hiking and trekking?
Nyanya: It was very significant for me, as we already talked about when I got divorced. So, at that time, I was so lonely and the kids had already moved out, except Csilla who was still at home, but she was very difficult, had a tough character, I don't know, but it was hard to deal with her. The other kids were in college in Szeged, Budapest, Árpi had already gone to work, and I was suddenly very, very alone.
Eniko: That's not easy.
Nyanya: And then I started. I liked this hiking, and then I got really into it. It was a lot of work in the beginning, with being the secretary and all the work that was involved with that. And then I indulged myself with it. With this, I calmed down. I didn't need anything else. The community was the great drive for hiking.
Eniko: And this kind of natural side of nature, how significant is it for you?
Nyanya: I'm not completely obsessed with this whole thing. What's it called, that green or eco or I don't know what they call it. Whatever. So, I don't feel that it's so essential, in the sense that they say on the media, that nobody should have children, because overpopulation is bad for the environment. So, it can't be this extreme or something. In the Netherlands, they did things like clearing out all kinds of cattle farms, and who knows how much money they spent, because the cattle exhale methane or whatever. Well, it can't go like this. After all, the human is essential.
Eniko: But the natural world is still very beautiful.
Nyanya: Surely the natural world is very beautiful, and as much as possible, it should be taken care of. I completely agree with that. But you can't say don't go to the forest now because who knows what people will ruin. Let's go to the forest! Yes, let's breathe in the fresh air, let's go to the forest, but don't set it on fire or make a mess there. Gather it up. That's how I feel, but the human is more important here.
Eniko: I remember that we hiked several times when I was a child, I was amazed at how much you knew about plants and critters.
Nyanya: I knew the plants, but I've forgotten now.
Eniko: I wanted to ask why Jakab Hill is so important to you?
Nyanya: Firstly, it's a very beautiful place. It's not too far away, so these are the positives. It's a clever thing; it's very nice to look down from the rocks, and below there, these villages, the view is really beautiful from there. And the other thing I really liked is its history. There was a little village on top of the hill in the sky, and that village had a little church, and the patron saint of that church was Saint James, and that's why it got the name Jakab Hill. In the 1200s, there is a record of Jakab Hill, and it's related to the bishop of Pécs at that time. Many hermits lived in caves, holes, or such places. And this bishop of Pécs gathered these hermits and built a small monastery on Jakab Hill for them to live together and also in a community. So around the middle of the same century, Özséb, who was a canon from Esztergom and later became a hermit, saw a miraculous scene. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he saw flames. And in the end, these flames merged into a big flame, and he assumed that this was God's request for him to gather these flames, which were hermits into a common monastic order, and then, the Pécs people, the ones from Mecsek, were already gathered more or less, because this bishop had gathered them. The Mecsek monastic order was the first, and later they were called the Paulines because they regarded Saint Paul as the greatest saint, and therefore, the Paulines are the only Hungarian-founded monastic order. So I really like the monastery, which you can see at the top of the mountain. You also see its little garden with two wells, and the temple too. You can see that the tower is in ruins, and various walls of the buildings are visible, but it's still interesting overall.
Eniko: Yes, I like the Jakab Hill trail because it's beautiful and easy to reach. The whole hike is not very long, but it's a bit challenging. You go uphill, but when you reach the top, there are the ruins, the lookout, making it worth the effort you put in.
Nyanya: Well, I also planned that for God's sake, when I die, they should scatter my ashes on Jakab Hill. Yes, indeed, in the church, because it's a consecrated area.
Eniko: It's been your plan for a very long time.
Nyanya: Well, it hasn't changed since then. And when my ashes are spread there, I will be there for you when you do the hike again. Alright, are you satisfied now? I am satisfied. A kiss for you!