W.A.S.E. (We Are So Enthusiastic) is an inspirational zine, pop-up gallery, online archive of ideas and creative community recently launched by the internationally recognized Hungarian-Spanish-Russian collective Kinoprvada. Danila Kostil, a key member of the formation, gave us a tour of their debut exhibition at Hybridart Space in Budapest. Besides the current exhibition, he told us about the ambitions of the community and their sense of responsibility towards the art scene. This week is your last opportunity to check out the exhibition, the closing event is on Friday!
The exhibition, which will be open until July 30, will feature the founders of W.A.S.E., the members of Kinopravda and Kinomoto, presenting themselves through their artworks. Zoltán Áprily, Áron Filkey, Gábor Garai, Andi Gv, Heni Kiss, Luka Kostil and Dañila Kostil.
Zoltán Áprily’s artwork, a postcard from the exhibition, humorously sums up the essence of W.A.S.E.: to remind ourselves and creatives of the time when, at the beginning of their careers, they aspired to a higher level of self-fulfillment beyond applied art. “In the hamster wheel of the advertising industry, you get used to getting a brief, responding to it, then getting another brief, then another brief, and so on. Ten years go by in this system, and you find yourself becoming passive, not as enthusiastic, not as eager to start your own projects. With W.A.S.E., we want to remind ourselves, as well as creatives working in advertising and the whole scene that we are artists too. If we listen to our own voice, we can channel it back into our creative work later on” says Danila.
W.A.S.E., as the name suggests, is a kind of inspirational operation. It was based on the fact that only 20 to 30 percent of Kinopravda’s many collective ideas were being implemented. First, they put together the scraps of ideas, cuts and visual experiments that had been lying fallow in a zine, then they started building an online database. In the first zine, they collected unrealized projects that could trigger creative processes in others. The twist here is that access to both the online database and the zine is restricted to W.A.S.E. members. The reason for this exclusivity is to share the idea base with creatives who, in return, are also actively and selflessly inspiring the community. The aim is to ensure that the members of the think tank are able to keep showing each other something new.
In a first-round, Danila and his team are accepting two hundred and fifty members, and anyone can join. They invite advertising agencies, directors, writers, photographers, visual artists, casting directors, visual designers, cinematographers and stylists from all over the world, typically people they have worked with before and whose ethos and aesthetic worlds are in line with their own. “We believe that this creative altruism based on give and take will pay off” says Danila. Apart from inspiration, you can also get the membership you want by simply buying a piece of art. This is in line with the idea of artistic responsibility behind W.A.S.E.: they believe that the advertising industry, among others, has a responsibility to support artists. They also feel it is their responsibility to provide space for their members to show and sell their work in future group exhibitions.
The project is currently in pilot phase, but plans are already underway for pop-up galleries in Barcelona and New York. They are also thinking about thematic exhibitions in the future, with new members, where everyone will work on the same theme. Furthermore, there are plans to develop one large-scale special project a year with advertising agencies.
The current, debut exhibition in Galamb Street is about the members of Kinopravda, which was founded seven years ago: “The exhibition has a flow, the sequence of images is characterized by meta-connections between people, in this case, the members of the Kinopravda team. The harmony of our works, which we made in different times and spaces, highlights this meta-connection between was. We have selected the works based on these criteria” shares Danila. They would like to channel these meta-connections and collective energies into their community and make the most out of it—with boundless enthusiasm.
Instagram pages | W.A.S.E. | Kinopravda | Kinomoto
(Cover photo by Andris Zombori)
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