2020

Hungary

2018, 2020, 2021, 2024

What happens when an ancient image survives without surviving in its original form?

Deer Stones is an ongoing R² investigation into the recurring image of the deer in stone — from ancient megaliths and ritual monuments to contemporary sculptures and accidental structures found in the Hungarian landscape.

The project began with a simple observation: some contemporary Hungarian monuments unexpectedly recall the form and imagery of ancient deer stones. Others have no connection to them at all, yet begin to resemble them once they are encountered through the same visual and symbolic lens.

Rather than reconstructing a historical tradition, we followed these unexpected correspondences.

Ancient Deer Stones

Deer stones are ancient stone stelae associated with the Bronze and early Iron Age cultures of Mongolia and neighbouring regions of Siberia. Their surfaces carry images of flying deer, weapons, ornaments, and solar symbols.

The deer is not represented simply as an animal. Its recurring upward movement, elaborate antlers, and association with solar imagery suggest a figure moving between different realms.

For R², this image became a point of departure rather than a subject to be illustrated.

Deer stone, Khovsgol Province, Mongolia from

Modern Deer Stones

In Hungary, we encountered several contemporary stone monuments whose forms and imagery unexpectedly echoed this ancient vocabulary.

Among them were Tree of Life (Életfa) by Péterfy László and Szerdahelyi Károly in Zalaegerszeg, and The Conquest of the Homeland (Honfoglalás) by Harmat Ferenc with Piszter Péter in Balatongyörök.

We photographed them, researched their histories, and made frottages from their surfaces.

The frottage allowed the monument to enter the work through direct physical contact. Stone became paper; relief became line; the surface of an existing monument became a new, portable image.

Materials: paper, wax crayons
Frottages: 2018, 2020, 2021, 2024

Field of Deer Stones

Another encounter took place south of Nyirád, where we found a group of concrete posts on the grounds of a long-abandoned military installation.

Their original function had been forgotten or was no longer immediately legible. Yet their arrangement on the hillside unexpectedly recalled rows of ancient standing stones.

Were they monuments?

Of course not.

But what happens when an ordinary utilitarian structure begins to acquire the visual presence of a monument?

We photographed the site and digitally altered the images, allowing the accidental resemblance to become more pronounced.

The Field of Deer Stones emerged from this gap between what an object is and what it can become through perception.

This project became an example of Revealed Realism: the work does not begin with the invention of an image and then search for a place to put it.

The place comes first.

A monument, a fragment, a concrete post, a trace, or a surface is encountered. Attention establishes a connection. The artistic act then reveals or amplifies a possibility already latent in the object.

The meaning is neither simply found nor simply invented.

It appears between the thing and the way we look at it.

Deer as a recurring figure

Across the different sites, the deer gradually ceases to be a single archaeological symbol.

It becomes a moving figure — appearing in stone, in contemporary sculpture, in accidental structures, in traces, and in the imagination.

The project connects these appearances without claiming that they share a common origin.

What matters is the moment when an image returns.

Deer Stones forms part of the broader HartLand project, in which the deer becomes a way of tracing relationships between landscape, memory, movement, human presence, and the persistence of symbols.

Series: The Quarry as Witness

Pusztamiské Gravel Quarry, Hungary

2020

Pusztamiské Gravel Quarry is an active extraction site south of the village of Pusztamiske, Hungary. Parts of the quarry are still in operation, while others have already been abandoned.

Its exposed walls reveal contrasting layers of white, ochre, orange, and pale sand. Beneath them lie traces of the Pannonian Sea: fossilised shells, sea urchins, corals, and other marine organisms preserved in the gravel and sand.

For R², these walls became a way of encountering geological time not as an abstract scale, but as something visible in colour, texture, movement, and material.

Walls the Color of Time

The exposed quarry walls became the starting point for a series of visual observations.

Their colours and structures record different layers of geological and human history. Ochre, limestone, sand, clay, and darker mineral traces form a landscape in which colour is not simply visual, but material evidence.

We observed the walls as changing surfaces rather than fixed images. Light moved across them, shadows altered their appearance, and the presence of bodies introduced another temporary layer.

Ritual with Shadows

Among the tall orange and ochre walls, R² staged a performance with deer masks.

The figures moved slowly through the quarry, following the contours of the terrain and the changing light. The masks connected the action to the deer that inhabit the surrounding landscape, while the exposed strata placed the bodies within a much deeper temporal field.

The performance was not intended to reconstruct a historical scene or illustrate a myth. It was a way of being physically present in a landscape where geological time, industrial extraction, animal movement, and human perception meet.

The shadows cast by the bodies became part of the work — temporary forms appearing on the sediment and disappearing as the light changed.

In the Deer’s Footsteps

In an inactive section of the quarry, we discovered a trail of deer tracks crossing the exposed terrain.

The tracks followed a path up the slope and suddenly disappeared.

This encounter became the starting point for the video In the Deer’s Footsteps.

The work follows a trace that leads beyond what can be seen, turning the landscape into a space of uncertainty, encounter, and return.

In the Deer’s Footsteps
Video
Director & Camera: Marina Razheva
Actor: Dmitry Razhev
Editing & Color: Sasha Snova
Music: Vladimir Razhev

The Thread

Another part of the quarry formed a landscape of pale sand mounds resembling a soft labyrinth.

Here, the thread became a line of movement through the terrain — a fragile connection between two presences approaching each other from opposite directions.

Rather than illustrating a predetermined story, the action allowed the physical structure of the quarry to become part of the work. The landscape itself determined the path, the distance, and the eventual encounter.

The Thread
Video
Directors & Camera: Marina & Dmitry Razhev
Editing & Color: Sasha Snova
Music: Vladimir Razhev

Revealed Realism

Pusztamiské became an example of how Revealed Realism works through attention rather than predetermined form.

The quarry offered the walls, the colours, the tracks, the shadows, the labyrinth-like terrain. Each became a starting point for a different action.

The works did not seek to add meaning to the landscape, but to enter into what was already present and allow its conditions to redirect the artistic process.

The quarry was not a backdrop. It was the condition of the work.