The BrainStore Art Challenge this Christmas
This year, Biel/Bienne in Switzerland, where BrainStore is located, hosted an art event called “Utopics”
This art exhibit in the public space dealt with ideas like new nations, utopical concepts of society, the invasion of public space and new concepts of the way we could live together in the future.
Among the artists were Antoni Wojtyra and Anni Wu, who worked together in this exhibit as “W&W” and proposed the concept of
“ideally“, an art gallery that does not sell artwork, but rather offers it to someone in exchange of a wish.
The artists in the gallery were not allowed to sell their art, but they had to formulate a wish. Visitors of the gallery could offer to fulfill the wish of the artist and propose how they would do that.
Antoni Wojtyra had created a neon work of art called “let’s hope…“. His wish was at the same time simple and comlex. He wanted people to finish the phrase “let’s hope…” and to choose from those phrases the most meaningful for a future art exhibit.
BrainStore offered to collect the phrases for Antoni, and received the neon in exchange, which now hangs in the check-in at BrainStore in Biel and greets visitors with the challange to finish the phrase.
This Christmas, BrainStore sent this challenge to everyone who has been working with us as a client, partner, freelancer or staff. We want people to express their hopes for the future, for this world, and even for themselves.
Within 12 hours of having sent the Christmas greeting we had already collected more than 500 phrases. Among them are many that express the wish for a better humanity, for world peace and the end of hunger and war. But there are also more personal ones like “let’s hope she calls me” or “let’s hope for a kiss”.
From all the phrases, Antoni will choose a few ones to be part of an exhibition in late 2010 somewhere in the world. He will put the “let’s hope…” neon in the center and the finished phrases as neons around it. Antoni is currently also collecting phrases in Vancouver, among people who usually are not seen as very hopeful: The homeless, the drug addicts, people living on the margins of society.
BrainStore will choose one phrase to be made into a Neon and will offer it to the person who contributed the phrase.
You can contribute here:
December 24th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Let’s hope as it were an attitude
January 4th, 2010 at 11:45 am
So far, we have collected 830 suggestions on how to finish the phrase “let’s hope…”. Thanks to all for their contribution!