The eight worlds of the bachelors reveal a vast array of subjects, with the projects grounding the content of the narratives. From Unknown Caller, Anna Zimmerman’s humorous New Office aims to improve conditions for the freelancer working in a semi-public space such as a café. A series of tools include different kinds of workwear, alongside false backdrops for Skype meetings, pointing out the challenges faced by freelancers trying to maintain professionalism while in a transient context. From a material perspective, Anna Diljá Sigurđardóttir’s machine-made sculptures in her project Earthly Delights, explore the potential of raw sulphur. Setting the tone for the many other material innovations of Scavengers, Earthly Delights delves into the cultural, environmental and historical significance of the element. From the world of Hidden Publics, Irakli Sabekia's Voicing Borders subverts the hostility of a razor wire border fence, by turning it into a radio antenna to communicate information about villages that were destroyed in the Russian occupation of Eastern Georgia.
Anna Zimmerman, New Office and Anna Diljá Sigurđardóttir, Earthly Delights. Photographs by Femke Rijerman.
Responding to the complex political, social and technological factors of these different worlds, the characters of the master’s graduates provide an equal variety of approaches. Maggie Laylon Saunders – a Situated Agent – created Striptopia, a pop-up strip club environment, which gives full political, financial and bodily autonomy to the dancers, with tools that allow them to create their own working conditions. Meanwhile, Domitille Debret’s Empathic One-Tailed, ridicules the mass harvesting of online user data by tracking a humble goldfish as if it were a mouse cursor, to generate false statistics to beat data analysts at their own game.
Maggie Laylon Saunders, Striptopia and Domitille Debret, One-Tailed. Photographs by Iris Rijskamp and Femke Rijerman.
With its 2019 graduation show, Design Academy Eindhoven seeks to acknowledge the complexity of each project and the interlinkages between them. When design fictions work collectively, they transform individual dreams into potential realities—and redefine the channels through which designers can exercise their voice and their impact..
Irakli Sabekia, Voicing Borders. Photograph by Iris Rijskamp