The outside world is not looking for the autonomous artist or the graphic designer, but for people who possess a multitude of talents and skills. Young creatives who look beyond the borders of their original discipline.
When you arrive at the academy, you start with a Bachelor course ( major). Your major allows you to gain knowledge, (cross-media) skills and attitudes relevant to a wide range of professional fields and practices. The projects you do during your major combine theory, research, skills, concept development, visual design and implementation.
On top of the major, WdKA adds elective projects. The students can choose from a wide range of contemporary subjects and issues. These projects introduce students to our three graduation profiles. We call them the Autonomous, Social and Commercial Practices.
The Practices as study environments will introduce students into an interdisciplinary way of thinking and creating. You will be confronted with challenges in the fields of technology, public space, societal conflicts and economic strategies and other large questions of our era. This is where you figure out what you as an artist, designer, educator or producer can contribute and how you position yourself in the dynamic artistic and cultural fields that are strongly anchored in the lives of others.
Within the context of these practices, you can fine-tune the direction of your study programme based on your own professional agenda. Each practice has four challenges. In each phase of your study, you can choose between projects linked to these challenges. In short, the practices are structured and defined as follows:
Autonomous Practices focus on the shift from the traditional autonomy of fine art towards critical self-organisation.
Commercial Practices focus on design research in relation to the world as an ecosystem consisting of complex interdependencies.
Social Practices focus on the notions of cultural production as a communal act that might challenge and reshape dispositions of power