The Sea of Volcanic Hearts brought people and artists together to reflect on past and future revolutions, while also celebrating one year of vegyeskereskedés. Throughout the year, we gathered people of different nationalities and cultures around a shared table to learn from one another, exchange ideas, and create together. Challenged Orbán’s fearmongering and instrumentalization of the war in Ukraine, while responding to ongoing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community by organizing events rooted in solidarity and support.

In the revolutionary artworks, Mina`s painting Azadi (Farsi: freedom) portrays the figures of the Iranian revolution, she emphasizes that her piece is not yet finished just like the revolution itself. Meanwhile, in Birth of Revolution, Barbara approaches the idea through the process of birth, using it as a metaphor for rupture, pain, and emerging forces. In Landscape, Andrii visualizes the system and the ongoing interdependence between the state and its people.

Hosting this event a month before the national elections in Hungary, there was a fragile yet persistent sense of hope for political change. We questioned whether a 16-year-old system could truly be undone, whether something so deeply rooted could shift at all – it almost felt unreal to imagine it. And yet, the unlikely became real, reminding us that even entrenched authoritarian structures are not immovable, and that they can be challenged and overturned through the collective force of democratic participation.