Graduation 2014

A lot of students explore innovative ways to help humanity better engage and cope with contemporary reality. From displaced individuals to politically disenfranchised groups we see projects that seek to empower.

The impact of complex technology is the reality that Remy van Zandbergen’s installation and stop-motion project “De Zeefdrukkerij” addresses. He is responding to how powerless we feel when confronted with the machines we use daily. His contraption offers an imaginative look inside automated processes by allowing viewers a glimpse of each step of the printing process.

Nick Meehan has worked to give citizens more access to the political lobbying process. “The Lobby” is a platform where one can propose an idea then garner financial support via a model that resembles crowd-funding. The funds then pay for a professional lobbyist.

“The White Building” by Laura Ferriere and Eléonore Delisse is an innovative social project that aims at fighting the high rate of criminal recidivism in Europe. Developed within the collaboration of the Design Academy Eindhoven and the Penitentiary Institute of Veenhuizen, it is a transition space where prisoners gain work experience at the end of their sentence. Creativity helps prisoners to find their own personal interests and strengths, while developing concrete skills matching the professional world’s expectations. The ultimate goal of The White Building is a successful, lasting return to society.

As part of the current discourse concerning whether exhibited design objects must be realistic and sensible, the Design Academy Eindhoven wants to celebrate that hazy border between sense and nonsense. That moment of poetry when research leaps into material, shape and function.

In “Ambio” Teresa van Dongen fuses the scientific attitude of biological research with more magical and intuitive design thinking. Her electricity-free lamp uses bioluminescent bacteria to glow and it is a project that truly captures how design thinking is never completely rational.  The point is that nonsense should never be wiped out of the design discipline if we are to maintain a free and creative way of thinking.

Nina Gautier’s project “Urtica” similarly captures that leap from logic to magic. She has created a series of textiles made from stinging nettle.  Usually considered a pesty weed, stinging nettle also holds properties beneficial in both medicine and agriculture. Nina experimented further to discover that when weaved, stinging nettle can have a strong, soft and silky finish. She also experimented with parts of the plant to create natural dyes in various shades of green.

Wiktoria Szawiel was raised between Polish, Belarusian and Russian cultures. Once in western Europe she soon longed for the melancholic eastern landscape that had been her constant. Landscapes, she concluded, resonate with people – they have cultural meaning, particular functions within society and they connect with memory. Conjuring up sounds, visuals, and feelings from that lost constant, Szawiel created an image of space, light, and atmosphere to create “Landscapes Within”. The furniture pieces capture the essence of memory in physical objects where material, colour, technique and shape all link back to that embedded memory of landscape.

Shows the work of 155 graduates

Open for public:
October 18th  at 13:00
Open for press:
October 18th at 11:00
Location:
deWitteDame, Emmasingel 14, Eindhoven

Passe-partout tickets are your entrance to Klokgebouw, Dutch Design Awards exhibition, Design Academy Eindhoven and Van Abbemuseum

Opening hours:
Saturday 18 October
13:00 – 18:00
Sunday 19 until Wednesday 22 October
11:00 – 18:00
Thursday 23 until Saturday 25 October
11:00 – 20:00
Sunday 26 October
11:00 – 18:00

The winners of 2014 are...

Through the exhibition and event programme Sense Nonsense at the Van Abbemuseum, Design Academy Eindhoven explores the inevitable relation between sense and nonsense, the interplay of sanity and insanity in innovation, and the role of the ridiculous and the absurd in liberating society and industry from the conventional wisdom that drives it.

With work by amongst others Auger & Loizeau, Maarten Baas, Makkink & Bey, Wim T. Schippers, Tomm Velthuis, Marcel Wanders and Thomas de Wolf.

Open from 18 october until 9 november

Evening program with food, drinks and talks:
From monday 20 October until saturday 25 October from 7PM - 11PM

More information

Also this year’s graduation show, DAE students are making daily radio shows: they will interview graduates, visitors, journalists and other interesting people.

Please check our Facebook page and the EMMA web page for your daily 20 minutes of Graduation Show radio:

Design Academy Eindhoven would like to thank her friends

ALIAXIS | BRUNS | CANON | CATHARINA-ZIEKENHUIS | COSENTINO | ECCO LEATHER | E.ON | FORBO FLOORING | GEMEENTE EINDHOVEN | GGzE DE GROTE BEEK | KEEP AN EYE FOUNDATION | LECTURIS | NS | RENE SMEETSFONDS | SWAROVSKI |
> VEENHUIZEN | VAN ENGELEN & EVERS | VESCOM | WATERSCHAP DE DOMMEL | WOONBEDRIJF

The Graduation Show is part of the Dutch Design Week 2014 and is supported by Gemeente Eindhoven