Written by Juliette Mirabito (MA The Critical Inquiry Lab '21)
As the academy’s first graduates after and during this year’s multiple social and health crises, the 2020 class of Design Academy Eindhoven gathered for a diploma ceremony on the first of September. In a socially distanced choreography, students shifted from rooms of live streams to rooms where they received their diplomas. The physicality of the moment was very intensively shared after such a long time apart. Some students were bodily absent as they had returned home.
Happening in multiple time zones, the ceremony was hosted in the building of the Witte Dame in Eindhoven and friends and families tuned in from a distance. The ceremony started with Raf de Kenick (Director Education and Research) opening the day by welcoming graduates and the education team of the academy. Joseph Grima (Creative Director) addressed his congratulations to the students for their endless determination and the exigency of their propositions. He welcomed them as members of the DAE alumni community, and expressed his hopes to encounter them again, as tutors, coordinators, head of departments, curators, or as Geo-Designers.
After the introduction by the Directors, Louise Schouwenberg (head of MA Contextual Design) underlined how necessary cooperation amongst students had been. As students, we learn most from our peers. As challenged as those relationships have been for the past few months, she congratulated students on their determination to help each other. This year, diploma subjects oscillated from a reflection on the discipline, social problematics, to very personal topics. Meghan Flacke, for instance, was nominated for the thesis award as she commented on the process of textile making, intertwined with notions of productivity and non-productivity. Niall Keville, a Contextual Design student, received the workshop award for his dedication to mix craftsmanship and design. The award was given by André Wiersma, metal workshop instructor who, as a last word, encouraged students to “stay cool”. This duality between personal urgencies and a broader understanding of context was also present in the projects of the Information Design Graduates. Sergi Casero graduated Cum Laude from Information Design with a project advocating for the importance of memories, starting from his generation’s experience of Franco's past dictatorship in Spain. Head Saskia Van Stein was next to join the stage to introduce the graduates of MA The Critical Inquiry Lab. Zeniya Vreugdenhil wrote a thesis about air space “exploring how governing bodies utilise law as a design tool for spatial production” seeking to understand the structures and constructs of the air above us. Projects of the students from MA The Critical Inquiry Lab were shown in TAC a few days before, in an exhibition untitled What comes after will not be like what was before. The already emotional atmosphere was emphasized, as it was Jan Boelen’s last year as a head of Social Design. He called the students one by one to join him on stage. He pointed out how much he learned from them and qualified this promotion of a Grand Cru while also addressing the camera for those who couldn’t make it in person.
The morning ended with a toast followed by a silent disco party where the students danced, and the social distance and silence between them emphasized the presence of air space. Despite the ghost of a still ongoing crisis this choreography mirrored the atmosphere of the morning and felt like an intimate and joyful moment. In the afternoon the eight Bachelor departments Activity, Food Non Food, Public-Private,Motion, Communication, Identity, Leisure, and Well Being celebrated their graduates of the year 2020. Raf De Kenick and Joseph Grima reiterated their congratulations that they already formulated at the beginning of the day.
Olga Flor from BA Public Private graduated Cum Laude and also received the workshop award. She graduated with a project regarding the sound of mundane objects and the surprise these encounters come with. She designed a series of everyday devices revealing their mechanism giving access to the object’s storylines. Broadening the understanding and the relationship one nurtures with an object is also a thematic that can be found in Manon Meyer’s graduation project from BA Leisure. She realised a movie that activates our relation to our belonging. One key point of her project was the design of legal contracts as they mediate the relationship between objects and their owners when those enter their households. Graduating from BA Identity department, Anna Dienemann produced a range of wearable accessories to ease and normalise social distancing, taking advantage of the situation in which she had to produce her diploma. Joseph Grima emphasized the bachelor students’ ability to look at what’s existing and to design from it, broadening the common understanding of innovation. He quoted Charles Eames formula, inviting designers to “innovate as a last resort”. Looking at the everyday, Juliette Leclercq focused her two graduation projects on food. She designed a magazine about the region she originates from in the north of France that functions as a guide for locavorism. Her project was advocating for a deeper understanding of regional ressources while developing a sense of belonging, as well as an attention to the natural rhythm of seasons. She also designed a series of plates which indicate the carbon footprint of the food they contained. Juliette graduated from BA Well Being and was highly congratulated by her head of department.
As students shifted in the room, the head of departments also thanked the families, through the camera for their trust with their loved ones. The ceremony concluded with a joyful toast while trying to fit in the frame of the camera. Students had to make an exceptional effort to stay 1.5 meters away from each other with mixed feelings of excitement and relief.