Evelyn Bencicova's Asymptote Explores Socialist Architecture and Uniformity

Slovak photographer Evelyn Bencicova, born in Bratislava in 1992, won the Hasselblad Masters in 2016 and completed her series Asymptote in collaboration with art director Adam Csoka Keller. The work examines the visual and psychological legacy of the socialist era, using architectural sites from that period as its foundation. These monumental buildings, once symbols of power designed to make individuals feel small, now stand abandoned or forgotten. Bencicova blends historical reality with fiction, reinterpreting authentic testimonies and archival materials through contemporary digital language. The series addresses current conditions in post-Soviet societies, focusing on paranoia, surveillance, uniformity, normalization, and censorship as ongoing cultural legacies. In the photographs, human bodies are never central; they are bent and arranged into coherent geometric patterns, symbolizing the regime and erasing individuality. Symmetries, identical masks, and cold, faded palettes reinforce the effect. Figures merge with railings and walls, creating an emotional architecture where limbs appear mechanical yet melancholic. The result is a tense world where organic and concrete clash, and personal autonomy conflicts with communal mentality. Bencicova, who studied fine art and new media in Vienna, continues to explore themes of control and conformity through her lens.