I am a visual artist with a long time lighting design practice in theater. My main focus is installation, and performance. I have studied architecture in Budapest and studied audiovisual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (BA 2009). I am a certified biodynamic craniosacral practicioner.

Having moved from Budapest to Amsterdam, my fascination for layering, light and shadow became the focus of my interest, leading me first to shadow installations and later, through a series of dance-related installations to a lighting design practice. In order to learn more about composition in 3D and additive color scales, I started a study in theater light design. My teachers in the field were Petyr Veenstra and Ellen Knops, with whom I have been lighting the Monday Match improvisations series at the Bimhuis Amsterdam.

I have initiated and co-directed an annual art camp for children in Hungary for 9 years, and conducted the One minutes workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, as well as my own workshop Drop Yet Sea in Tuzrakter (an occupied art house that closed in 2011). I have given numerous workshops of stage performing with multimedia, using space, and physiology of perception from 2012 on.

Together with Alfredo Genovesi I established Sweet Germ performance duo in 2007 and together with Marek Jason Isleib fused into Sumo3 in 2009.

I participated in a number of collective exhibitions and an individual one. In the field of performing arts I have collaborated with Alexandra Bachzetsis, Silvia Bennett, Paolo Cingolani, Gabor Csongradi, Padmini Chettur, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Tale Dolven, Katie Duck, Marie Guilleray, Julyen Hamilton, Makiko Ito, Anne Juren, Kenzo Kusuda, Miri Lee, Sylvan Meret, Sabine Molenaar, Julia Plawgo, Felicity Provan, Lily Kiara, Bruno Pocheron, Ruben Reiniers, Bilawa Respati, Yvonne Sembene, Sharon Smith, Georgi Sztojanov, Sirah Foighel Brutmann, Meg Stuart, Sharon Smith, Khouloud Yassine, Doug Weiss and others in several projects.

I joined the Mono collective in 2010 which resulted in a fast progressing and prosperous intertwined development with Silvia Bennett. The joint study of us two was taking place whilst making Falling trilogy. We have continued as Tri Co. performance trio together with Gabor Csongradi, and created On being ill, Mouthpiece and Doos.

This work in both Sumo3 and TriCo. building upon my audiovisual studies was opening a door for me to go deeper in translating between performing arts and film, and recently between performing arts, and light installations, moving towards expanded cinema. My theater research in color and perception, understanding lighting as a language with its own syntax and having worked with that in different ways gives me unique ground to speak directly to art audiences who assimilated digital media in their daily lives.

I have exhibited Bestiarium, Us, Ornaments Distorted, Nude, and White lies, and had a solo exhibition called ‘The Curious Matter’. I directed the performances ‘Drop Yet Sea’, ‘A Forest’, ‘On Being Ill’, ‘Doos’, and in Berlin the piece ‘Stranger’. A lot later I had the chance to engage in the research project ‘Dream sequence’ and co-created the installation ‘Distant Memories of the Void’. I have also co-created a number of improvisation performances with the Sumo3 group, Mono collective, and within the Monday Match series and in Overtoom301 in Amsterdam.

My work in Amsterdam has been granted by Saint Gobain glass solutions, AFK, VSB fonds, Rabobank, Dansmakers Amsterdam, 2Turven Hoog Festival and Materiaalfonds. I have participated in a peer-coaching module in Teatro della Limonaia and in residencies at Valdapozzo and Dansmakers Amsterdam.

In Berlin My work has been supported by Fonds Daku, Initiative Neue Musik Berlin, and Wiesen55.

Between 2021-2025 I have been part of the research project ‘Reflecting Light’ (Joint project of KASK and Buda Kortrijk) in which frame I could teach, publish and research in the field of lighting design and light and perception in a broader way.

Since 2015 I live in Berlin. For me the difference between composing visual art or theater work is that the latter is a darkroom in a culturally specific context, the first is the picture that stays. After a long period of working in theater, I am busy with translating my time-based works developed in the ‘darkroom’ to installation works.

People said this about my work:

The shows are a fantastic combination of dance, theatre and visuals. The visual part plays an especially important role. Emese Csornai, originally from Hungary, works with the Mono Collective practising light design. She is playing with influencing both the reception of the performance and the audience. The movements of the beams of light across the stage created a pestilent tone passing insidiously from place to place.
Malgosia Krakowska, “Mono Collective – The choreography of life”

I love this way of no theatre lights – her use of space her use of light is not about light but absolutely unpretentious use of space and time.
Katie Duck

In the Bimhuis in Amsterdam every month dancers and musicians come together for a unique improvisation lab: the Monday Match. On the spot they create a performance that is inspiring for performers and an extensive and diverse audience. This year is the ninth season and Emese Csornai is regularly taking care of the light/visuals in a very creative way. She proved to be able to co-operate fruitfully with many different artists, coming from many different countries. Her input during the session shows a fascinating balance between support and intervention, bringing calm and adding energy, giving space and surprise.
Jacqueline Algra, co-ordinator Monday Match at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam

As the proprietor of the cultural space in which the works were exhibited I spent days in close proximity to the pieces. The piece that I felt most drawn to was the installation of the nine mirrors. They were beautiful to watch, sometimes resembling raindrops, other times disembodied breasts of various sizes, floating in our space. It is only after a few days of walking near them and through them that I started seeing myself and my surrounding in the mirrors. Suddenly they were transformed from an aesthetically beautiful piece to watch to a conduit for watching myself and my own space, it was a eureka moment! I usually take the time to digest a piece of art. After some time I either “get” it or not. But to think to get a piece and to be so utterly surprised by it after many days was an inspiring moment, and a testament to the playful inspiration of the artist.
Sahand Sahebdivani