How can a local creative market be transformed into a strong creative community? What role can a design market play in raising the visibility of local creators, strengthening consumer awareness, and creating new connections among actors in the cultural and creative sectors?
These were the topics of the first webinar of the Visegrad Art Market – happy to share project, which focuses on the cultural and creative industries of the Visegrad countries. In the project, SIXAGON is working as the lead partner alongside Estrada Rzeszowska from Poland and Mame Market from Košice. As part of the project, the first session of the three-part webinar series, held on November 14, 2024, explored the topic of community building through specific best practices.
How Did Mame Market in Košice Get Started?
The guest of the discussion was Viktória Žitňanová Nagyová, founder of Mame Market in Košice, who launched the initiative based on her own creative experiences. As an illustrator and watercolor painter, she herself realized that Košice lacked a high-quality, well-organized market where local creators could showcase and sell their products. Mame Market was created in response to this need.
The market has been operating for five years and now works with 50–100 creators. Each event attracts an average of 1,000–3,000 visitors, and the interest is significant not only commercially, but also in terms of community impact. Mame Market is not simply a sales platform: it is a meeting place where local creative entrepreneurs can build relationships, draw inspiration from one another, and collectively shape the city’s creative ecosystem.
Community Building in the Creative Industries: What Really Works?
One key takeaway from the discussion was that community building is rooted in trust and personal presence. According to Viktória Žitňanová Nagyová, online communication—primarily Instagram, Facebook, websites, and increasingly TikTok—is an important tool, but the real strength of the market comes from face-to-face interactions.
For shoppers, it’s not just the product that matters, but also the creator’s personality, story, and presence. This is something that a web shop or social media platform can only convey to a limited extent. The organizers of Mame Market consciously build on personal connections and positive experiences. Music, visual atmosphere, shared experiences, and collaboration among creators all contribute to building a loyal audience and a stable creative network.
The Biggest Challenges Facing Creative Markets
Organizing the Mame Market, however, requires a great deal of behind-the-scenes work. Finding the right venue, for example, is an ongoing challenge: while they’ve managed to find a good spot for the summer markets in Košice, they’re still searching for the ideal space for the winter Christmas market—one that’s larger and offers suitable conditions. The venue is not just a logistical issue; it also fundamentally determines the composition of the audience and the atmosphere of the event.
During the discussion, it also became clear that the operation of creative markets is significantly influenced by the economic environment, declining purchasing power, and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Due to the uncertain situation, several creators have returned to their previous jobs or temporarily put their own brands on hold.
How are creators selected for a design market?
One of the interesting topics of the webinar was the selection of creators. Mame Market operates through open calls, but does not automatically accept every applicant.
Key criteria:
- the visual quality of the brand,
- the creator’s portfolio,
- social media presence,
- product quality,
- and how well the creator fits the market’s image and community.
According to the organizers, the market’s brand and the creators’ brands reinforce each other, which is why a conscious curatorial approach is necessary.
Local purchasing and sustainability in the creative sector
Participants also highlighted the importance of local purchasing. A market like this is not just a sales opportunity but a space for shaping attitudes: it helps demonstrate how products are made and the labor, knowledge, and materials behind them.
Sustainability manifests itself here in practical decisions:
- supporting local products,
- ethical production processes,
- sustainable packaging,
- and attention to waste management.
It also became clear during the discussion that supporting local creators is not only an economic issue but also a community and cultural one.
The Role of Coworking and Creative Communities in the Urban Ecosystem
The example of Mame Market also highlighted that creative communities need supportive infrastructure. In Košice, a broader creative scene is taking shape around the market, partly linked to coworking spaces and workshops.
These community spaces provide an opportunity for illustrators, painters, ceramicists, designers, musicians, and other creative professionals to work side by side, learn from one another, and develop a shared professional identity.
What can creative professionals in the Visegrad region learn from one another?
At the end of the webinar, the next steps of the Visegrad Art Market project were also discussed. Following the community-building phase, the upcoming sessions will focus on:
- the communication challenges of the creative sector,
- as well as issues of sustainability.
As part of the project, a needs assessment will also be conducted among creative professionals in the Visegrad region, with the aim of providing a more accurate picture of the sector’s challenges, needs, and development opportunities.
The story of Mame Market shows that the development of the creative sector often begins not with large institutional interventions, but with committed local actors who recognize a need and build a community around it.
The goal of the Visegrad Art Market project is precisely to make this local knowledge and these best practices visible, to connect them, and to help ensure that creative actors in the Visegrad region can work within stronger professional communities, with more informed practices and greater visibility.
