The annual Graduation Show by Design Academy Eindhoven is one of the most visited venues during the Dutch Design Week, and this year it was located at the Beursgebouw in the center of Eindhoven. The space was filled with work by over 160 graduates from BA and MA level. Maren Bang from the Elementa team was present, and has gathered some favorites from this years edition. The show presented a great variety in works, regarding both themes and mediums with students from a broad range of nationalities.

Niclas Ekwall: “The Resonance of Play”

A room filled with instruments of various shapes and characteristics is an invitation to play and express your pent-up emotions and individuality without inhibition. There are no rules and making music is as easy as plugging in a smartphone and swiping intuitively on the custom-made web-based synthesiser. The question is, whose phone is playing which instrument and making which sound? How does our personal expression start responding to the sounds of others playing around us? How does this change with different people and different personalities? Since there is no right or wrong, The Resonance of Play invites us to become more curious and playful towards the social dynamics of self-expression.

Hsin Min Chan: “To-be-looked-at-ness”

During the first wave of the pandemic, Hsin Min Chan was monitored by a 24-hour surveillance camera in an isolation ward. Only once she performed hysteria and despair, was she released. This dehumanising experience of the medical gaze made her not only conscious of similar gazes in her daily life, but she realised that she could manipulate perceptions and empower herself by exploiting being viewed as an object. The result is a sculptural dress that exaggerates the to-be-looked-at-ness of the woman who wears it. It thereby functions as a suit of armour that makes the woman unapproachable and autonomous, no longer owned or disciplined by the male gaze.

Pierre Allain: “Parade Performative Production”

“As a designer, I want to unite people and encourage collective intelligence,” says Pierre Allain. For ‘Parade Performative Production’ he created workshops that let participants experience the joy of making together while reflecting on the current social crisis. Aimed at cultural events, such as the Parade Festival, the project consists of building objects and body extensions that remind festival visitors of the social distancing society. In the small and ephemeral festival world, with its own laws, Pierre proposes to play with the rules rather than enforcing them, taking inspiration from the fun and diversity of theatre costume history to let go of expected shapes. Rather than a space to avoid, social distance could become a space to fill, to feel or to interact with.

Shun-Chih Chang: “An Endless Tale of Sisyphus”

The endless cycle of creation, destruction and starting again can make both our creative processes and daily lives seem futile. Having materialised his own experience of the cycle through a series of metaphorical objects, Shun Chih Chang now sets the stage for a participatory performance. By collectively embodying the endless cycle, participants experience it as a shared and inevitable flow of nature. Rather than futility, by experiencing the cycle together it becomes the essence of freedom and change. Then the illusory and untrustworthy nature of the fixed conclusions and stable commodities that thwart the cycle can be appreciated.

Rona David: “All This Fuss Over a Jar of Pickles?”

A video compilation of thoughts about the meaning of life and the absurdity of existence, is screened next to a jar of pickles. As feelings of meaninglessness and absurdity often rise from contradictions between elements, the contrast between the insignificance of the pickle’s existence, compared to our own, evokes the absurdity of being. If even a pickle jar can act as a metaphor for existence, does this mean that every object can become meaningful if we trigger it’s meaning—whether it’s human life, the universe or a jar of pickles? This design research project is a reflection on the nature of language, design, and the world that the language we use allows us to design.

Finn Mullan: “Disinformation Is A Virus”

The COVID19 pandemic not only acted as an accelerant of disinformation, but accelerated the negative consequences of disinformation. The problem has become so rampant, that even a demonstration of the disinformation risks amplifying its content. Seeking an alternative, Disinformation Is A Virus shows the spread and mutation through a model of the virus lifecycle. By focusing on the transmission and spread rather than content, the model demonstrates that online groups, journalistic coverage, political messaging and even countermeasures can unintentionally mutate and spread the disinformation. By understanding disinformation as a structural problem rather than a content problem, different pre-emptive measures that can be explored.

Jonas Hejduk: “Crash.jpeg”

It is the year 2021, and according to Silicon Valley, the resolution of the future should be High Definition. Instead, a meteorite has crashed to Earth and mysteriously lowered the resolution of not only images but also objects. The blur is unformed, unreadable, defective, but also authentic, romantic, aesthetic, ecological and political. This speculative scenario by Jonas Hejduk emerges through images and objects created by misusing online image databases, and modelling and rendering software. It explores how our tools align our perceptions with dominant ideological paradigms, questioning the cultural mythologies that shape our expectations of technology. Crash.jpeg asks if we can understand more by rendering less?

Bom Noh: “Buddha Op=Op”

Bom Noh is from South Korea where she was raised in a family of active Buddhists. Once in the Netherlands, she encountered a completely different and transformed use of the Buddha image. In this country where Buddhism isn’t widespread, Buddha statues are found almost everywhere. Not only in the domestic environment but also in stores, working environments, bars and restaurants, even in toilets. Can the representation of Buddha be a tool to understand and reflect on Dutch society? Bom asked herself. Through interviews with experts, Bom discovered how the Buddha image in the Netherlands is commercialised as a symbol for mindfulness, peacefulness, and meditation. She presents her journey in a video installation that illuminates the layers behind the Buddha image in the Dutch context.

Highlights from Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation 2021