BUDAPEST UNDERGROUND
Budapest, Underground! © is a community-based brand
conceptualized in 2020, and later established in 2021 by Hungarian visual artist Norbert Forgacs
as a zine documenting the BMX subculture of Budapest through black & white
analog photography.
Since the inception of BPU, a constant creative experimental process began to
flow, utilizing various printing methods and graphic designs co-created by Canadian artist William
Robinson , and Philippines born painter Jay Republo .
While organising street events with our crew Strt Lf to visualize the deeply rooted
meaning and values behind the brand, our main focus is to unite likeminded people within the
BMX community and artistry to inspire collaboration from all over our country.
Our first Zine self-titled Budapest, Underground! was
influenced by a fascination of the science and artistic vision surrounding film photography. We
started to shoot our daily life in the city, going from street spots to house parties on black & white
film before envisioning a development into something bigger. Originally, it was solely dedicated
to our close friend group - a physical copy of our friendship and an opportunity to reminisce on
what will one day become nostalgia in our elder years.
After making the first test prints, we began to show it to a small group of peers out with our circle,
in order to gain criticism of our work from an unbiased perspective. The feedback
was overwhelmingly positive, and the criticism was beneficial to the quality of the final product.
After many months of communicating and networking, we were successful in launching the zine
in 4 different places: our local film camera store, bmx shop, sneaker store, and vintage clothing
boutique. They later offered to sponsor our subsequent BPU BMX Street Jam
that took place on the 29 th of May in 2021 with clothing,
bmx parts and gift cards.
Clothing:
During the preparation for our first BMX Jam, we decided to award riders in 3 categories: best
tricks, highest bunny hop, and rider of the day. Although we had sponsors providing an array
of prizes, we additionally wanted to make something personal showcasing embroidery from our
friend Bence Somogyi . We proudly supplied 3 custom shirts as prizes for the
above-mentioned categories. The jam was a great success and people were eagerly
anticipating our next advancement.
After 2 years of brainstorming and exploring our artistic realm, Norbert Forgacs living in Glasgow,
United Kingdom, met William Robinson and Jay Republo, resulting in a collaboration to bring
their magic into the brand. Will is currently a fashion student at Glasgow Clyde College, due to
begin a Bachelor of Design course in fashion at Toronto Metropolitan University this summer. He
has spent years working to master his screen-printing skills, and shared his knowledge with
Norbert in order to build a screen-printing studio in his bedroom. Combining Jay and Will’s
graphic, our first drop was born on the 28 th of April this year, instantly selling out every product in
various sizes.
VIDEOS - BRUTALPEST ( WATCH HERE)
Last year, we dropped our first mixtape titled BRUTALPEST ,which
we filmed during the end of summer and uploaded in November on DIG BMX’s site as part of the
DIG LOCALS series. We plan to start filming our first full length DVD this summer, which will
have physical copies distributed, and will potentially be debuted at an exciting launch event in
Budapest.
The current and future:
As of this year, BPU will be moving its facilities to Budapest, Hungary to start a full-scale
collaboration with Budapest based BMX crew Strt Lf, to build a studio full of embroidery
equipment provided by members Zsombor Bartok , Marton Vajda ,
David Tabi and combine Norbert’s equipment and knowledge of screen printing to
make high-quality, yet affordable clothing for the public while being proud to maintain Eastern
European Excellence created by open-minded individuals worldwide.
