Bridging the Thesis: Alumni Presentation/Q&A and Thesis Exhibition

Thesis 'What Design Can't Do. A thesis about windmills', by Pam Breedveld

Pam is a maker and researcher of windmills and other technologies. Her practice involves the reconstruction and redesign of familiar technologies to explore the relationships and interactions that emerge through them. She holds a profound fascination for how perceptions on technology relates to understandings on nature and the environment, and vice versa. Pam researches (the role of) the narratives that shape these perspectives, with a particular emphasis on language.

Through her artistic work, she examines, engages with, reveres, challenges, and performs with problem-solving tools, revealing concealed modernist value systems while actively pursuing and shaping alternative narratives. These fresh tales and the quests to discover them come to life through her performative installations, films, writings, and conversations.

During her graduation year (2023), Pam was part of the student group that initiated and ran GINKGO (KABK Green Office), the platform that researches and promotes sustainable making practices within the academy.

More information on her graduation can be found here.

Photo by Ira Grünberger

Thesis 'My present is more than I remember', by Clara Sharell

Clara Sharell (b.1999) is an image-based artist with a research- and process-grounded practice that investigates the influence of collective and cultural memory within our personal lives and societies. She draws upon her own memories, emotions, and family story in which she explores the entanglements and implications in past histories that shape her German-Jewish identity. Through a variety of mediums including photography, film, writing, and textile elements, she creates places that radiate warmth and familiarity. Her installations invite intuitive reflection and pondering about the role of the past and the influence of memories in the shaping of our lives. Theories of (visual) anthropology, sociology, and memory studies inform her practice, giving writing a central role in the work, both serving as her main research method and an identity-constructing tool.

My present is more than I remember explores the entanglements of word and image and their role in constructing memory and identity. Delving into personal memories and intergenerational connections within her family, Clara seeks to understand how inherited experiences and stories shape her personal and artistic identity. Further, the paper examines the existential role of collective and familial memory in shaping Jewish and German-Jewish identity. The research paper consists of fragmented subchapters and uses a range of texts and styles, including sociological and art-historical theories from authors such as Maurice Halbwachs, Roland Barthes, and Marianne Hirsch, as well as experimental diary entries, poems, and personal anecdotes.

In her presentation, Clara will talk about her writing and research methods and the way her research influenced her graduation project and vice versa. She will also touch upon using different writing styles (theoretical, anecdotal, experimental, personal) as a guiding research method throughout all of her final year at the KABK.

More information on her graduation and her work can be found here or here.

Photo by Ira Grünberger

Theory Platform of the KABK

The Theory Platform is a bimonthly academy-wide meeting and action group, focusing on educational innovation, led by lector and professor Dr. Anke Haarmann in collaboration with theory tutors, thesis supervisors, and KABK librarians.

Three members of this platform have organised this thesis event; Annemarie van den Berg (Library), Ingrid Grootes (Photography) and Anna Arov (I/M/D)