And here’s how you can benefit from hot yoga classes. First of all, it speeds up the body’s metabolism, intensively detoxifies the body and helps flush toxins from the skin. You can warm your muscles faster enabling them to stretch better. The heat also allows the body to go a little more deeply into the postures so it is easier and safer to complete the exercises. As other yogas as well, hot yogas also help the body relax and improve breathing techniques. In a 90-minute workout, each and every part of your body will be moved so your muscles and inner system receive oxygen rich blood and as a result we can live more healthily. Hot yogas are excellent for those who want to work on their strength, flexibility and tone along with the cardiovascular system.

Maha Hot Yoga Studio
1138. Budapest, Marina sétány 1.
Tel: +36.1.877.61.21
mahayoga@mahayoga.hu
http://www.mahayoga.hu
www.facebook.com/mahahotyogastudio

When, how and why did you join the Hungarian design-world?

I founded HUBA (Hungarian Bazaar) DESIGN last year to ensure foreign debut opportunities for Hungarian designers by hosting an exhibition and fair that is affordable. I have been hearing how the Hungarian market would need to be expanded by finding new markets to interact with from artist friends, and I myself have experienced how important foreign debuts are while I was working in a gallery. But another problem is the missing industry behind it, which would need to be able to quickly supply the large quantities of materials needed by designers working on commission. My efforts are concentrated on foreign countries, so I don’t feel like I’ve really entered the Hungarian design-world, rather I’m trying to introduce the Hungarian design-world into the international design-world, and that barely started to happen.

Last year in London, you introduced thirty Hungarian designers during Design Week. How did this help the participants apart from networking? Were any actual sales made? How well known and respected is Hungarian design on such a large world-market?

It’s always difficult to introduce yourself on a market with such strong competition. You need time to understand what the trends are and how you can raise attention.Londonis an excellent learning experience from this aspect. Because of this my primary goal was to just help designers make it out there and see for themselves. To gather information, be inspired, meet the representatives of international design. So I made sure they got into the defining fairs, such as 100% Design and Tent London Origin. It was no accident that I was adamant about the designers actually attending Design Week instead of just sending material, as I’ve heard it is done in other countries. Not to mention how much the presence of a designer helps in actually making a sale, and it’s no secret that there is still a lot to learn in this regard. They know almost nothing about Hungarian design inLondon, we left the international audience behind sometime after the Rubik’s Cube. Hungarian brands are more likely to be found in the world of fashion.

Who elects the members and future exhibitors and based on what criteria?  

I would like HUBA to encompass the entirety of Hungarian applied arts, and to have more and more young Hungarians get a chance to introduce and explore themselves internationally. When selecting member I mostly listen to my accomplished applied artist friends and gallery owners, but of course I pay attention to WAMP and KREATIMM exhibitions, and try to select from the largest pool possible. OurLondonexhibition had three artists who were chosen to be part of the most prestigious professional review forum, 100% Design.

You’ve launched the Budapest Design Tour that takes buyers to smaller, lesser known shops and workshops. Is this program only geared towards tourists, or is it open to professional and Hungarian audiences as well?

The test-run of the tour had a group of 12 people, comprised of Hungarians and foreigners. We tried to find the middle-road between information packets for professional and everyday audiences. There are of course elements that can be emphasized for either clientele. We primarily aim all of this at foreigners and visiting tourists, but if there’s a demand on part of Hungarian audiences, we will gladly show them where Hungarian design is at today, and more importantly where they can find it. Our tour currently involves seven design shops, two galleries, and a workshop – that are equally lovable for different reasons. You have to see however, that compared to international markets, Hungarian design is incredibly affordable. To be appreciated, you need an international presence, which will drive the price upwards, and positively affect quality.

HUBA Design Fairs
Boglárka Tóth - +36 20 444 3795

http://www.hubazaar.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/HUBA-Design-Fairs

Two Hungarians who have been captivated by the Island of Kings. A cameraman and a photographer who by now are making their umpteenth documentary about Thailand. A young couple, who might even be working towards bettering the Hungarian-Thai friendship.  We talked with Zsuzsanna Szabados and András Pintér.

You have visited Thailand on several occasions as a filmmaker-photographer duo. Which was your most decisive experience that convinced you that you had something to do here and to share your experiences with others?

We first visited the country in 1998 as backpacking tourists and the five weeks spent there was a decisive experience. We have since then visited Thailand 8 times and spent two and a half years there, shot seven documentaries and I had two photo exhibitions. The unforgettable experiences could fill the entire magazine, but there are a few I would like to single out. The few days we spent in the middle of the rice-fields of Central Thailand in a Buddhist temple with the local monks is an amazing memory. When we arrived they told us we could stay for a day, a year or even forever…During the morning prayers the local women came and touched us, because they had never seen a white person before…

You shot footage about a reclusive Hungarian artist living in the archipelago, about the compiler of the Thai-Hungarian dictionary, and even about how we should tour this exotic country with children. What do the Thai people think of us Hungarians?

Laci Kékesi, the dictionary-compiler is a ‘white-Thai’ and he is truly worthy of the Thai name his friends have given him, Thongtae, which means solid gold. Sándor, the hermit living in the jungle earned the respect of the locals with his reclusive lifestyle, he’s called ‘green man’. By the way our movie Made in Fairyland shot with him won an award in the Nature Film Festival. Thai people welcome tourists from any country the same way, and they like the fact that Hungarians have origins that tie into Asia, and thus we learn the Thai language more easily.

What decides whether you can feel yourself at home in a foreign country or not?

It is just a question of time. The more time you spend in a country, the more you become an ‘insider’ or a ‘longstay’ as they say in Thailand. You have to adapt to the life-rhythm of the locals, and also learn their customs. Openness is essential for someone who wants to live in a foreign country.

Your son, 2 year old Buda also trekked with you, which resulted in many blog entries. What was the most challenging aspect of the journey?

We worried most about the long flight, but Buda slept almost the entire time. Since we knew exactly where we were going, we were pretty relaxed otherwise. Thai people are very family-centric; wherever we went they took great care of Buda, which he of course enjoyed tremendously. He still talks about the sea, the tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw) and the plane. We even shot a film about the trip titled In Thailand with Little Buda.

Of course you don’t have to go as far as Thailand to see amazing natural vistas…

Apart from Thailand, Balaton and the Kali-Basin are my other great loves. András used to compete in sailboat races in Balatonföldvár, and I spent my summers in the family summerhouse on the northern coast in Badacsonyörs. We still go back there to this day, but with cameras. I’m planning an exhibition comprised of Balaton material… Apart from that, in 2007 we received a commission from the Szilvásvárad State Studfarm to shoot a documentary about the stud-farm in Lipica through all four seasons. We spent a year and a half traveling to Bükk to shoot, which resulted in The White Cliffs of the Bükk that was even featured on Duna TV. My picture, Winter Gallop which I took during the shoot won me the first prize in the professional category of the Horseback Nation photo competition. We are open to the whole world, so hopefully our path will take us to many great places.

To read more go to funzine.hu or at http://www.anzsufilm.hu/

Choosing the profession of a shoe maker seems to be a rather spontaneous decision in the case of Anna. When we ask her why she chose this path, she replies, ‘Well, it’s a cool thing to do and people say I have a good sense for it…’  She originally studied to be a film maker inNovosibirsk, and came toHungaryfor a film festival with some digital flicks. Then, at the end of December 2006 she simply packed her backpack and hitchhiked here for a fresh start. She ended up at the MOME University of Arts and Design.

Even though she started out as a film maker, the love for shoes was certainly present from an early age:  ‘My very first shoes were perhaps wooden cubes which I tried to fix on my feet with tape at age of 3 or 4. That was a failure, so I took a brake – 20 years later I made ballerinas out of felt, sled with a pad for hot dishes.’ The first pair she actually sold was a white-gold shoe of classical ‘Oxford’-design in 2008 – about a hundred pair of other shoes followed the same year, through the internet. Today, she has her own workshop and showroom in the 7^th district, she runs a webshop and sells her shoes in Saint Petersburg, Berlin, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, New York and San Francisco. Everything is done by hand by Anna and her aids at the workshop. They just have two machines here: a sewing and a polishing machine. Pleasemachine shoes are largely made of natural materials, and recycling plays a major role, too. It’s not just about environmental consciousness though, Anna’s simply sad when she sees beautiful fabrics been thrown away, just because people got bored of them. ‘I find materials everywhere: household wastelands, old furniture, attics and basements, abandoned factories. Sometimes other people just bring such fabrics to my shop. The things that grab my attention are interesting patterns and structures. At the moment I’m working on a car tire recycling project, together with the guys of the Heroine Workshop’, she says. Some of her designs are pretty wild, and not always in accordance with current fashion trends, which Anna doesn’t seem to care too much about: ‘Every model I made has, had or will have its hot period. In some cases it took a year for people to wake up before they’d start to order a particular shoe model like crazy. A few times I even took the model off production because it was not very popular and the next day it would hit the charts. So I’m not worried, I give time for public fashion to get it.’ When we ask her about her plans for the future, it gets obvious that Anna’s not a big fan of making plans: ‘I take it easy with my plans: the more unbelievable the better!’ She keeps on making her shoes and continues shooting her films.

Siberia Shoe Shop

1073 Budapest, Wesselényi utca 19.

www.pleasemachine.net

www.doraabodi.com
www.facebook.com/dora-abodi

www.behance.net/lakieszti
lakieszti.blogspot.com

The designers at Dombon-a-tanya organized this friendship based tradition into a sophisticated system. There are 8 different platters for 8 different events – one with soda and lollies for kids parties, one with melon and ham for summer afternoon lunches, one with champagne, strawberries and cream for weddings, and one with wine, cheese and walnut for drinks with friends.

www.dombon-a-tanya.hu

Congrats! What exactly does that mean for the future of Nanushka?

The investment means that we can expand more safely and boldly. We have received good opportunities from abroad before as well, but we usually didn’t dare to take them, because they would have exceeded our capacities at the time.

It’s not easy to be a fashion designer in Hungary – quality raw materials are hard to come by, there’s little sound demand and it’s nearly impossible to find an investor. Do you see any chance for the circumstances to change, for a better infrastructure for designers to develop?

I don’t think that any branch of industry can survive on the domestic demand alone these days. And in a globalized world, why would we not take the opportunities provided by foreign markets? We tend to speak about foreign markets as if they posed some kind of a burden, but it is restricting ourselves to the Hungarian market alone that is a burden to a business – which is especially true for fashion. To be honest, it was fighting this kind of narrow-minded thinking that posed the greatest challenge for us. If the mentality of the industry doesn’t change, it’s always going to be a struggle. It is not necessarily talent that we lack inHungary.

In what ways are foreign markets different than the Hungarian?

The market segment we are trying to find our place in is quite underdeveloped inHungary. In bigger international fashion centers likeNew York,Paris,LondonorTokyothere is a broader segment of customers, of young women who are independent and want to express themselves through their clothing. This is a broad market, one that is between the luxury brands to be found atAndrássy Boulevardand the mammoth brands of the shopping malls. These customers are usually a bit more daring abroad than inHungary. InBudapestonly those dare to show a bit more of their personality through fashion who are connected to the creative world through their profession: stylists, designers, artists. Abroad there are a lot more people who dare to go to the office while wearing something that tells a story about them.

Part of the changes are that the so-called Beta-store originally planned to be a pop-up store remains and turns into Nanushka’s headquarters, we’ve heard.

Yup, the Beta-store turned out really well, so in the next days it will be re-opened, at the same location, with the same fabulous design.

Where else can we find Nanushka-items?

InHungarywe would like to sell the brand at our own shop. Abroad Nanushka items are sold in over 40 shops in a dozen countries, and soon our international webshop kicks off as well.

What are the medium- and long-term plans for Nanushka?

We would like to stand safely on foreign markets, especially in theUnited StatesandJapan, where the biggest interest for the brand shows. We don’t have wild dreams, but we certainly have room for improvement – the hardest part is still to come.

Nanushka Beta Store
1052 Budapest, Deák Ferenc utca 17.
www.nanushkabetastore.blogspot.com/

Sas-hegy

Its present-day name was given to the hill in 1847 when the geographical features of the Buda Hills were renamed – Sas-hegy is the translation of the former German name, Adlerberg. According to a popular legend a parade was held on September 2nd 1686 by the victorious Christian armies after capturing BudaCastle from the Ottoman Turks, and during the parade eagles flew from the hill nearby towards the castle…

After the Ottoman occupation, vineyards were planted all over the lower slopes of the hill. The Buda-Sashegyi Kadarka earned a reputation throughout Europe! Unfortunately, the vineyards of Sashegy were destroyed in 1890 by the phylloxera…

Today, the area is a nature reserve, the 120 000 square meters on top of the hill were placed under protection. Head to the 2350 m long circular trail to check out the flora and fauna!  Ephedra is to be found here, one of the rarest plants of our country. The north-eastern side offers the so-called Sesleria of Buda, a relict of the ice age. Look out for the European mantis – one of the most ruthless predators among the insects: she actually starts eating up her mating partner during the act of love! On top of the hill you’ll meet a great variety of butterflies: the Scarce Swallowtail, the Old World Swallowtail and the Peacock Butterfly.

The Lake of Bánk

Well, it’s not exactly a stone-throw away, but definitely worth a trip – even a bike tour, if you’re daring. The lakeof Bánkis located 70 km north of Budapestand offers such a pretty scenery, that even a festival was created around it: the Bánkitó Festival is the meeting point of cyclists, hipsters and hippies, activist and artists of all kind in the summer.

The first written account of the lake dates back to the year of 1820. People apparently believed the lake to have an underground connection with the sea – for a long time, the sea’s depth could not be measured, and it never flooded after rainfalls and never dried out when a drought came. Suspicious indeed…Actually, bathing is forbidden (only allowed at the public beach), but jumping into the cool lake from one of the stages is just too much fun to miss out on…

Dobogókő

Located about half-way betweenBudapestand Esztergom, the highest point of the Visegrád-mountains, the so-called Dobogókő lies 700 meters above sea level, with a magnificent view on theDanubebend. On its southern side, the mountain is gently sloping; towards east it’s rocky and steep – choose your route accordingly.

But it’s not just nature you’ll encounter here, but Spirit as well, possibly. According to some esoterically inclined fellows, the heart chakra of the earth, ‘the beating heart of our planet’ is to be found here (also supported by the fact that its name can be translated as ‘beating stone’).

Pearls along the Danube

Three romantic spots, best done in row: Szentendre, Visegrád and Esztergom, lying along the bank of the Danube. Szentendre, sometimes referred to as the ‘town of painters’ is interwoven with lovely little cobblestone streets, lined by tiny museums – and heaps of souvenir shops. A must-do when you’re here: eating a hearty lángos, best with garlic, cheese and tejföl (sour-cream). Your next destination: Visegrád, one of the oldest towns of Hungary. Head up to the castle – it’s the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias (the little hike will do you good after that lángos). Don’t get too carried away though, you still have one more town on your list: Esztergom. Actually, it was the capital ofHungary from the 10th till the mid-13th century when King Béla IV moved the royal seat to Buda. Great architecture is abundant here, but one building just has to be mentioned: admire the most monumental construction of Hungarian Classicism, the Basilica, which silently rules the landscape above the windingDanube…

What’s the story of the Cellux Group?

The Cellux Group has evolved out of a circle of friends in 2006. We were designers, psychologists and sociologists, all at the beginning of our careers and simply wanted to create a little workplace of our own. We made a list of all the things that we would like to do, and then tried to merge these things into one. We all wanted to work with kids and do something connected to environmental protection. Out of these ingredients, the Cellux Group emerged.

What exactly is your profile?

We hold workshops for businesses and cultural institutes, for kids and grownups alike. We learned a lot on the way, expanded our portfolio and now take on the ‘complex planning’ of campaigns, exhibitions, events and installations aiming at the communication of environmental consciousness – from working up the concept, elaborating the content, designing and executing the visuals.

Can you give us some examples of projects like these?

One of our biggest project of this kind was the creation of the Mirror to the World exhibition, which has been seen by over 27 000 people on 6 locations. We used to go to different schools to hold workshops and classes on environmental consciousness, and we thought it would make more sense to create an exhibition instead, so the people could come to us. Of course not just the content, but the physical exhibition itself had to reflect the idea of environmental consciousness as well, so everything we used was recycled, we built walls out of borrowed beer boxes, for example. Two of our members, Gitta and Boglárka Dani designed and built the interiors of the 2 in 1 mother-to-be shop from old pieces of furniture, and we temporarily furnished the shop-window of the Writers’ Shop as well. But our main profile are the workshops, of course. It was a conscious decision, not to choose artistic self-realization but the sharing of knowledge and skills with others. And it gives us so much! If you do a pair of earrings, you’ll probably never meet the person buying it, but when you create something together with others, you see its place in the world.

What do your workshops look like?

It all depends on where we’re going. Sometimes we join open events such as festivals, here we have a big table with heaps of colorful household waste (plastic bottles, packaging, basically non-organic trash that we all produce during our every day lives) and some tools, puncturing and ring-making instruments, for example. Then we simply show people how to create new items out of the trash: jewelry, little booklets, purses and so on – something they can use afterwards.

But we have regular workshops for kids every week – these workshops open the opportunity to go a bit deeper in the area of eco-design. Sometimes we pick a topic and discuss it while getting creative, other times we select a specific material and build our workshop around that, or we build a larger object together as a team. At the Szélforgó Family House in Szentendre for example we created the ‘dustbin-monster’ with the kids, a complex and organic creature which functions as the local selective trash collector at the same time. The ultimate goal is when participants leave, they are a bit more courageous to take things into their own hands – whether they are 6, 26 or 96. Awareness-raising and creativity go hand in hand here. It’s important to realize that ‘environmental consciousness’ is not just recycling. Above all it’s an attitude – an attitude towards the objects and the people surrounding us.

Where do you get the trash you work with?

The waste is coming after us, so to say; friends and acquaintances provide us with more than enough…

You’ve been doing this for six years now – what’s your experience, how has the attitude of people changed since then? Are people more aware of environmental problems? Are they more open to start changes in their own lives?

When we started there were not too many groups like this, it was a novelty to approach environmental protection through art. That was the time when selective waste management began to enterHungary. It’s safe to say that the majority of Hungarians has gained sufficient knowledge about this topic since then – of course it’s a different question if and how people act in practice; that is a long process. The way I see it that so far, people have been given some practical knowledge and handholds, and now they have to learn how to cooperate with each other. Community gardening, exchange-events are all answers to this question. So there are some good things happening, but of course there’s still a lot of room for improvement. For some foreigners these things may be evident, butHungaryis lagging a bit behind. In western societies, the topic of environmental protection came up in the sixties, whereas inHungary, after the change of regime, we had a boom of consumerism. Now we’re starting to pick up.

The most environmentally friendly solution would be to reduce the amount of waste we produce, though…

Absolutely, and we have learned a lot, on a personal level as well. I think it’s impossible to realize all the ideas at once, so you’re better off going step by step. The last year of my life I devoted to banning chemicals from my household, for example, substituting them with natural ones, trying out which ones fit me best (I even tried preparing my own deodorant – unfortunately it didn’t work for me, but there are some recipes). It’s not that difficult, one just has to find the system that works, and then move on to the next area. For me, doing my own marmalade will be the next step. And I would love to skip the thousands of diapers with my baby soon to be born – we’ll see what my family says…

You work with waste, while the ultimate goal of your work is to stop waist from being generated – isn’t that a contradiction?

One leads to the other. Working with waste means placing it into the center of attention. We buy things and then throw them away, and when something turns into trash, it leaves our horizon, we don’t know and don’t care where it’s going and what will be done with it. When we pull out the waste out of the dustbin and put it on the table again, we have to face these questions. We realize that something we viewed as trash has a value of its own – and the work we put into it has added value as well. It is interesting to see how kids develop an emotional relationship with a piece of plastic while working with it, for example…

What kind of regular workshops do you have that enthusiastic readers could join?

Currently we have workshops at two locations, at the Noha Studio inBudapestand the Szélforgó Family House in Szentendre. On Thursday evenings we have the so-called Improvising Dress-maker’s Room in Noha for grownups, who can come here with old clothes they would like to transform, fabrics, or just ideas. We have eco-design workshops for kids on Mondays at Noha and on Wednesday every second week in Szentendre. And there is a Cellux Kid’s Kitchen at Moha Café and Gallery.

What is up next for the Cellux Group?

We would love to have our own space, and that wish now seems to come true with the support of the NESsT organization helping social enterprises – if everything goes well, we’ll have our own place in about a half a year. We’re also thinking about creating rentable objects, such as kids’ corners for different events. And there’s always something fun coming our way: some time ago we got the task of creating a human-sized chicken costume for the Fauna animal protection organization – out of trash, of course…

www.celluxcsoport.blogspot.com

www.facebook.com/Cellux-Csoport