× Certain artifacts have the power to evoke whole lifeworlds, as showcased by the fences and gates of the cottages at Lake Balaton. With their imaginative, playful shapes and delightfully matching colours, they invoke images of carefree summer vacations and not only that. Through them, we can glimpse the social milieu of the sixties and seventies, the specific context of their emergence.

The fences surrounding the individual plots are parts and parcels of the particular ambiance of the holiday resorts of the period, just like the flat-roofed holiday homes or camping bikes lined up against the wall. With their ethereal form, fences (and gates) are merely symbolic; not of isolation or enclosure, but mirroring complex social relationships. The role of these fences is not so much to conceal, but rather to provide a better view – physically but also metaphorically – into the lives of their buyers and builders. They testify of the intricate web of relations between vacationers and the natives, whilst also giving visibility to various practical channels of cooperation, drawing attention to a livelihood strategy characteristic of the epoch, namely, the moonlighting practices of factory workers.

The significance of the above can only be appreciated against the backdrop of contemporary processes, which underlines the role of ethnographic museology in investigating, unearthing and documenting the steeply declining holiday culture of the 1960s and 1970s. The Beyond Forms project, formerly managed in partnership with the Veszprém Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture team but currently housed in the Dezső Laczkó Museum in the framework of the exhibition entitled „Small Gate to Lake Balaton”, promotes this endeavour with its own specific means. We are therefore still welcoming the photos of „fence hunters”, so walk around Lake Balaton with your eyes open and share your favourite fences with us, send them to formakontul@ldm.hu, and let us continue building this impressive database!