Mikosa Foundation was founded in Amsterdam in 2005 by an international executive board of Marco "Morcky" Galmawski, Rocco "The Boghe" Pezzella, Claudius "GLGP" Gebele and Henk-HENXS-Kramer, joined by Francesco "Lordh" Castellani.Based on our manifesto, we want to spread artists' works, being a the firment for a box of contemporary art, bringing different styles and visual images together, ranging works from graffiti writers to internet designer and from street artists to video artists. All of those people have got one basic thing in common: their black book. This is usually filled up with first handmade ideas and developments, unfinished artworks, rough sketches, the idea we transferred to our first long-term project, called Mikosa Magazine.
Each Mikosa Magazine consists 10 international artist from all around the world. It is printed black on white on A4 paper, 48 pages in total and only runs on a maximum of 500 pieces. The artists themselves are free to give us the design of their choice and can do whatever they want, respecting the handmade principle of the magazine. But not only the desings themselves, every other part ofthe magazine should be done as much by hand as possible, starting from the cutting and folding of the karton covers, through the usage of stamps to the individual painting of each copy and the final binding of them with a small rope.Each issue always comes with a special item that usually goes with the magazine. For Issue#01 we did the Mikosa Poster Collection, so every artist work is also available on an A1 poster. For Issue#02, the Mikosa Card Box was developed, a handmade carton box with A5 off-sett prints. As a part of Issue#03 we produced the Mikosa Fabric, a special silkscreen on an A3 cotton with a design of each participant. Finally, our latest gadget are the Mikosa Cubes, the design of a paper cube that everyone can build up by himself and more gadgets will follow.
Beside this handmade principle, the Mikosa Foundation tries to keep old production methods and the usage of those ancient machines alive. For example, as a constant factor of the magazine, the manufacturing of the karton cover is done by one of the oldest paper board companies in Europe, using their technics and machines from the early 20's of the last century. We are always looking for ways to involve those old technics in our issues, to remind people of those lost values.
Furthermore we always take part in different projects and fulfil our own ideas.