Should we all feel free to comment on or question art? Can the same artwork affect different people in different ways? Is art meant to be experienced before being explained? Are honest reactions more valuable than mere admiration?

If you like art and answered yes to any of these, Erisava is for you — a place to freely express how an artwork strikes you, before explanations, interpretations, or expectations get in the way.

We believe this firsthand experience of art is often easily lost or overlooked—whether in a museum or gallery, where we encounter one artwork after another, or online, where artworks can quickly pass us by as we scroll. We're not suggesting that an encounter with art can be reduced to a few words, nor do we discount the analytical and critical work of academics, critics, curators, and other art professionals. Rather, Erisava aims to capture another part of the experience: the immediate, personal response to an artwork that can so easily go unnoticed.

If this sounds interesting, join us — we've started with a growing catalog of paintings and sculptures as well as a large collection of public artworks from around the world. Instead of quickly scrolling past them, give each one a few seconds of your attention.

This isn't about simply liking or disliking an artwork. It's about noticing what you find—or don't find—in it. Does it strike a chord? Feel boring or repetitive? Something seems off, unnecessary, or doubtful? Does it feel fresh and inspiring, bold and moving, raw or unfinished? Is it trying to say something, sell something, or simply show off an artist's skill or cleverness?

If an artwork gives you something to think about, tap "What's your take?" and share your observation as a short question or statement. Your post will be reviewed before it is published, and once it's up, others can agree, disagree, or respond in their own words.

You can also add artworks you encounter yourself—at a museum or gallery, in a public space, or online. Just upload the image and add a few basic details about the work. Then say what strikes you in the work, and submit. New posts are usually reviewed quickly, and your post will immediately go live as soon as approved.

The catalog spans art history's icons and its stranger corners alike — famous portraits, forgotten oddities, unsettling masterpieces — each with real context on where it came from and what it's doing there. Beyond it, you can:

- Follow artists whose work keeps catching your eye
- Favourite the pieces and discussions you want to find again
- Comment and see what other people made of the same work
- Get notified when someone responds to your take
- Post your own finds from out in the world, linked back to where they can be seen

Erisava sits in a gap that's mostly gone unfilled. Academic and professional art discourse speaks in a register most people don't have and don't especially want. Opinionated forums and threads are largely the turf of critics. Social media flattens a real encounter down to a single silent tap. Occasional museum surveys ask about the visit, not the individual work. Gallery guestbooks, where they exist, are rarely public, mostly one-way, and tend toward the flattering. And the museum or gallery itself — where you meet the work in person — keeps no record of that meeting beyond a ticket sold and a name on the visitor count.

Erisava is a place for what nobody else is really capturing: your own plain, first-hand experience standing in front of the work. We invite you to pause for a moment and consider what's in front of you — whether you like it, find it interesting, or don't know what to make of it at all.

Vahid Dastpak

Maelezo ya Ziada