Remy van Zandbergen De Zeefdrukkerij Photo 1 This installation and stop-motion animation offer an imaginative look inside automated processes. These are usually hidden, and cannot be inferred from the finished product. But here, viewers can see every step in the screen-printing process. By pressing a button the viewer becomes the imaginary client who commissions a printed product and puts the printer to work. The machine has been ‘opened up’ to reveal each step, and at the end of the animated production line an actual business card comes out. Remy van Zandbergen intends to use his installation as a customised story-telling tool for brands or businesses.
Nina Gautier Urtica Photo 2&3 Sometimes the most unlikely of raw materials can provide the richest of resources. This is the case with Urtica – better known as the stinging nettle. This unwanted weed has a bad image because any contact brings on a painful rash. And yet, as Nina Gautier reveals, the plant’s properties mean it can be used for everything from medicines to fertiliser. Nina focused on the nettle’s potential for textiles. She used every part of the plant in woven blankets that are surprisingly strong, soft and silky. She mixed nettle fibres into her fabrics and made dyes in multiple shades of green, letting the hidden merits of Urtica shine through.
Teresa van Dongen Ambio Photo 4&5 Ocean waves glowing blue in the dark of night − anyone who has ever experienced this knows how magical it looks. The phenomenon is caused by bioluminescent bacteria in seawater that emit light in response to oxygen and movement. This principle inspired Teresa van Dongen to combine her passion for design and biology in a bioluminescent light installation. Ambio balances two weights and a glass tube half-filled with a medium containing this unique bacteria. Give the lamp a gentle push every so often and the weights will keep it moving and glowing. Ambio hints at how we can use nature as a source of energy in daily life.
Wiktoria Szawiel Landscapes within Photo 6&7 The starting point of this thesis is my personal fascination with landscapes. Landscapes that intrigue me, ones that impressed me a lot or ones I long for. Memories of places I grew up or are important for me. I was raised in between Polish, Belarussian and Russian culture. What they have in common, is nature, the unique, melancholic eastern land- scape. When I moved to Eindhoven I felt something uneasy, a certain feeling of displacement. I guess I was longing for some kind of eastern spirituality. In this project, I looked at the meaning and importance of a landscape for an individual and for humanity in general; I looked at the connection between landscapes and memory, the cultural meaning of landscapes and the functions it has for a society. So I dreamt about places, and I dreamt about landscapes, and I recalled familiar memories of sounds, views, feelings. From those little notions of a space, of a light, of an atmosphere, my project emerged. I wanted to capture the beauty and the spirituality of an eastern landscape within a physical object. My memories and dreams materialised into materials, colours, techniques and shapes. I tried to translate different aspects of land- scape into materials, both natural and artificial. I see air perspective as thickness, temperature as colour, light as translucency. I made samples, half products, and objects; half products to bring the feeling of an atmosphere into the space, and objects as a materialised essence of an eastern landscape.
