Expositie door toekomstige beeldende kunstenaars 

Tien studenten en afgestudeerden van St Joost, WDKA en KABK van de richtingen beeldende kunst, illustratie, fotografie en product design nodigen je uit voor hun actieve expositie: may i tie my shoelace to yours? die zij een week lang maken en creëren in de Keilezaal.

De commercialisering van onze wereld dringt door tot de kunstacademies. Vanuit hun positie als beginnende kunstenaars vragen zij zich af wat voor plaats zij in willen nemen in een wereld die draait om het product. Kunnen we ruimte maken om te spelen?

In dit experiment plaatsen ze zichzelf in een white cube ruimte. Door op een speelse en onhandige manier samen te maken, willen ze het traditionele gebruik van deze ruimte bevragen. Het proces van het maken zelf zien ze als de expositie en stellen ze open voor publiek. Zo onderzoeken ze een alternatief voor het maken van producten. Dit doen ze door het eindresultaat uit de expositie te halen. Zo hopen ze hun speelveld te verbreden. Ze laten je niet alleen de kers op de taart proeven, maar vragen je om mee te eten van de gehele taart (vieze handen inbegrepen).

Ze willen ook jouw rol als toeschouwer bevragen. Ze nodigen je uit niet alleen te kijken, maar ook het werk aan te raken en eraan toe te voegen. Om zo de ongeschreven regels binnen een expositie te buigen. Met dit project hopen ze verbinding te vinden tussen de toeschouwer en de maker. 

NB: De locatie is rolstoeltoegankelijk

Openingstijden Exposeren en maken:

13 t/m 16 en 19 maart 11.00 – 13.00   en  14.00 – 17.00

17 en 18 maart 11.00 – 13.00  en   14.30 – 17.30   en  19.00 – 21.00

Dresscode: Schoenen met veters

We kijken uit naar je komst!

Aggie Chang, Elody Dijkstra, SirahHaris, Kelsey Lujan, Lili Struik, Linde Roza, Nino den Hartog, Rosa Vermeijden,  Sam de Lange, Zela Odessa Palmer

Meet the makers:

Aggie Chang

This is Aggie Chang. I am a future Product Designer currently studying at WdKA. I would describe myself as an idealistic concept-oriented thinker, yet a practical executor. I aspire to be a futuristic/conceptual designer. I always mention, if it helps, that my favourite movies are Man in Black 1-3.  To me, art as well as design means challenging and taking risks in exploring the greater potential of our society. While the result-oriented, money-driven mentality grows within our industry, it is our responsibility as creators to resist such a self-destructive trend. May I Tie My Shoelaces to Yours is hence an urgent call to change.

Elody Dijkstra

Hey you, I’m Elody. I’m 25, in my second year of fine arts at St. Joost. In my work I search for things truthful and human-natured. In my creative process I seek for connection with myself, and from there I expand my focus more outwardly. I research the space that directly surrounds me and my relation to it. I don’t have a favorite medium to work with. Within my artistic practice I face a lot of discomfort, the kind that is human. I wouldn’t say it defines me or my work, but it would be a lie to deny its vital place in my process. Being human is messy, and I try to embrace it. I’m fascinated by the human condition, and believe there is always something that binds us to the universal, no matter how complex or simple. I approach my topics with gentleness and curiosity, and seek to make visible, tangible or sensible what we unconsciously might share. I want to search for connection. Let me set up the canvas where we can explore the humane.

SirahHaris

I am SirahHaris, a 21 year old artist and illustrator based in Luxembourg and Rotterdam. I am queer and Bosnian Montenegrin but was born and raised in Luxemburg. Thematically my art is highly personal, working through certain aspects of my identity, that always have felt like they could not exist in peace together. I mainly draw myself to reflect on experiences of my life, but hope to connect through that to others and their lives. Currently I love creating short comics and exploring that as a way to express human experience in a way I call visual poetry. I love metaphors as ways to express complex emotions and hope to mirror what it feels like through absurd and dreamlike imagery.

Kelsey Lujan

I am Kelsey Lujan, a 22-year-old Mexican/American visual artist based in Rotterdam. Currently, I am in my 4th year of my photography degree at WDKA. Growing up, I lived across different parts of the world due to my family moving around a lot. I found that my work stems from capturing the moments and experiences I’ve made with a wandering eye, to maintain a valued connection to these places and experiences. My work is also driven by emotions and feelings through our coming of age in this digital climate. While being interested in visual arts, I am also a fiber artist within the medium of crochet and have produced various pieces and installations which link back to different stages of healing. In the end, I look towards art as a means to curate and create my own fictional reality and live within my own playful technicolor world.

Lili Struik

I would say that I am the opposite of being clumsy. Thus I have the desire to research how I can be as clumsy as possible. Why would I want to do everything I am already capable of doing? I want to be clumsy. I want to embody a badass handyman! My name is Lili Struik. I’m 20 years old and a third year Art and Research student at the St Joost in Breda. I work with a multitude of disciplines, like: wood, metal, ceramics, cyanotype and many more. My art consists of me of me longing to find a shared train of thoughts, which centers around my desire for connecting with the space and people around me. I search for the relations between things that fit. Instagram: @lili.struik 

Linde Roza

Hey! My name is Linde Roza, 22 years old, studying fine arts at St Joost Breda, 2nd year. My work is mostly about everyday things and my own fascinations. In my practice I try to be as alert as possible. What strikes me in my studio and the world outside. In my practice I ask myself questions that I answer in a playful way. My studio is always changing. It is movable, collapsible and multifunctional. I see the space as a grid in which you can work inside or outside the lines. I prefer to sit in the middle of the room, so I am confronted with the world and the situation which I find myself in. I also explore my relationship to space and the object in a performative way. My work often results in a performance or installation, although I don't like to link myself to a fixed medium. 

Nino den Hartog

To be honest I always feel a lot of resistance to these kinds of introduction texts. I don’t want to narrow myself down to a few sentences. I always feel like I need to label myself in certain ways to create a clear image. I want to come with all my different faces and complexity. However, I also want to give you an idea of what you can expect from me. So here I go with fresh reluctance: I am Nino and I’m a third-year fine arts student at St. Joost. I think this resistance that I often feel for the way we organise ourselves speaks for me. Art is a playground for me to explore different ways to interact and structure ourselves. may i tie my shoelace to yours? is one of those explorations. With the way we structured it I hope we can create a sense of freedom. For us and for the visitor.

Rosa Vermeijden

A little about me: My name is Rosa, I am a third year fine art student at St. Joost Breda. I am 23 years old and I live in Rotterdam. I am intrigued by people, emotions and death. This is usually the subject or the starting point in my work. Next to that I am interested in the interaction between image and sound. I write classical music and I like to play around to see how that interacts with people and image. In this active exhibition I want to experiment with playing around and bringing people together. I am curious what will come along as we go. I am excited to see how we interact with the audience and how the audience interacts with us. 

Sam de Lange

Hi! I’m Sam, 21 years old, live in Breda, blablabla. In my work I like to explore borders. The borders of the art world, the borders of the art school I’m studying on and the borders of my personal life. I think that art can be much more than a painting or sculpture in a white room. I like to have fun, be with other people, talk about difficult subjects, cry, do stupid dance moves. Sometimes I think I should stop studying art, sometimes I think I’m one of the most interesting artists. I like people who stand up for themselves and try to do this for myself and other people with te stuff I’m making. I love to question things and I also get really tired of this, but will hopefully always continue this habit.

Zela Odessa Palmer

Hi, I'm Zela! I graduated from KABK in The Hague in 2022 from the fine arts department. At the moment I am inspired by the connection between language and identity. How do we distinguish ourselves through words and what happens when none of the words seem to fit? As a queer woman of color, it often happens that I find myself insufficiently represented by the norm, and the language surrounding my identity does not always align with my experience. So instead, I try to find myself in a language that does not yet exist and am creating as I go. Through (asemic) text, drawing and textile I try to figure out who I am and how I relate to this complicated world surrounding me.