Anxiety and hope are part of the human condition. It is just as unlikely that an individual has never experienced either of the two as it is difficult to imagine someone constantly feeling only one. It is exactly their duality that accompanies us—sometimes one of the pair prevails while the other draws back, while at other times the second of the pair overwhelms us.

Although they are always part of our existence, it is easy to think that in recent times we not are only experiencing them a great deal more than usual—fortunately, not only anxiety but hope, too—but that the very investigation of them is brought to the forefront.

In other words, not only are we thrown back and forth between these opposing feelings, oscillating between them, but we have an increased interest in understanding their impact on our everyday lives. Their duality, and the examination of their duality, is constantly being brought up, both in professional discourse and in regular talk, as well as in news and social media.

We are excited to publish the second issue of HAS Magazine because, through this publication, we can on the one hand contribute to the polyvalent analyses of the two concepts, and on the other hand we can open further perspectives of the investigation by exposing theories, aspects, viewpoints, and artistic contributions that—through the cross-disciplinary nature of HAS Magazine—might otherwise not reach a wider audience.

This thematic variety, we hope our readers agree, is among the most exciting features of the magazine—as well as our selections of theme—but the latter may require some further clarification. When we started to plan the present issue, and decided that the duality of anxiety and hope should be the topic of investigation, we did not imagine that, only a few weeks later, what elemental and crucial experiences anxiety and hope would be for all of us, on a global level, and that they would still continue, months later. Many people have found themselves in unusual and difficult situations, some falling into anxiety, others grasping at any signs of hope and all the possible attitudes and approaches that lie between the two, including increased creative activity, introspection, re-thinking previous hierarchies or values, escaping into novel experiences and lifestyles, and so on.

Nevertheless, even if the challenging times of the pandemic have affected practically all of humanity, we did not want to make this a COVID issue. Rather, keeping the editorial principles manifested in our first issue, we wanted to maintain the wider investigation of the dual concepts we chose as our theme. This explains why the reader can again find a broad variety of discussed themes, scrutinized ideas, and artistic practices presented in the following pages. Some examine the recent months’ happenings in detail, some reflect only briefly on certain aspects, while others investigate the topic from a much broader perspective.

We hope that the readers will enjoy being informed about the latest research, discovering novel aspects of questions they have already been thinking of, learning more about artists they were already aware of, or encountering other creators for the first time. We truly believe in the multi­disciplinarity of HAS Magazine. Instead of continuing the division between the numerous branches of the arts, humanities, and sciences, we believe that their parallel investigation can be extremely beneficial for both research and practice in general, and for the highlighting of this research and its social benefits in particular. In today’s world, where the importance of the arts, the usefulness of the humanities, and the credibility of the sciences are constantly questioned, even discredited, these dangerous tendencies create anxiety for great numbers of people working in these fields. Our aim for this publication is to contribute to an increase in hope in these essential areas of human culture.

Zoltán Somhegyi, Editor-in-Chief

Art historian with a PhD in aesthetics, Zoltán Somhegyi is Associate Professor of art history at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary.