Our beloved DP19s graduation is coming up and what better way for the visual arts(VA) students to show off their amazing works than to hold an exhibition.
For the past two weeks, having the library as their venue, they have put together a two-part showcase known as the ‘MOSAIC’ with different art pieces that range from paintings, digital drawings, sketches, photographs, short videos, animations, and sculptures for everyone to visit. As luck might have, I was able to attend both parts of the exhibition as well as interview some of the hard-working students and have them express their thoughts on their amazing accomplishments. Before the opening of part 1, both August Linden and Saskia Cederblad, two amazing VA students who created the ‘The Sublime in Motion’ and ‘Affliction’ series respectively, were happy to answer some of my questions.
Without question, the first thing I was curious about was how they felt now that they have finally finished their long process of preparing for their big day. Now as expected they were, of course, a bit worried about the setup and making sure that nothing fell over and such but that was not about to stop them from enjoying their work being on display and the proud feeling they expressed at finally being done with this chapter of the course. They were fully aware that the school year was just over yet and they still had a few more things to complete before they could fully enjoy their freedom, but this exhibition definitely served as a huge stress relief.
Seeing their works on display I couldn’t help but think that this must really have been a bumpy ride for them and as such, expressed my curiosity on the matter. “Personally, it was kinda all over the place,” said Cederblad. “I was stressed towards the end when trying to finalize everything in terms of the artworks as well as the descriptions of each artwork.” With the amount of work each student had put into their pieces, this came as no surprise. Linden also sympathized with this by saying, “Since I am standard level I did not have as much to worry about, I still felt stressful in my own way.” Despite this, they both agreed that this has been a great opportunity to grow as an artist through experimenting with things they usually wouldn’t do to see what they like and find what they most felt comfortable with in terms of medium or aesthetic as well as express who they are as a person and in a way express all those intangible emotions they feel a lot.
No accomplishment does not come without challenges and as we all know distance learning had been a huge deal during their past school year as such it was bound to keep them from the ideal learning environment they would have hoped for. Linden shared his experience with distant learning saying that “Our teacher wasn’t always with us so sometimes we felt very lost and what many don’t know is that it is a very overwhelming subject because you always have to record the whole process, do critical research and because there is no proper structured syllabus we really just chose our own path which is very nice but can also overwhelming. And also since the way it is marked is through criteria but doesn't really say instruction wise what you are supposed to do.”
Putting the challenges aside, what intrigued me the most was what they thought this exhibition symbolized for themselves and future VA students. In Cederblad’s case, “This whole exhibition is representing a specific nightmare I have been experiencing with this dark black figure that has been stalking and chasing me and I created this storyline of this girl who is haunted by this nightmare and she soon realizes that this nightmare is actually real, this black figure comes to life and continues to haunt her. I would say that the girl, in a way, signifies myself but she is on an entirely broader, more extreme emotional level.” I found this very peculiar and was happy to see that Linden shared my sentiments when he added, “I think you have done something bold, you didn’t stick with the traditional, you wanted to challenge the norms here, I think what you showed future art students is that you can always find a way to bend the rules when you have an intention or an idea. It is not always going to be like that even though you really want it to and you can see that here.” And I have to fully agree with this, the diversity in all the art pieces that were on display was truly a sight to behold. As for Linden’s goal, “My goal was to show a lot of variation, explore different media, I got to do that, explore parts of myself and produce certain works that make you feel like you're in awe and that is actually part of my theme.”
And with that our interview came to an end! Congratulations to the DP19s on their amazing Works as well as all others that participated in making this exhibition come to life.
By Hewan