It’s already a tradition for the Illustration department: at the beginning of the second year, students give a five-minute public presentation. Everything is allowed, everything is possible, the only requirement is that all of the student’s presentation materials must fit into a cardboard moving box.
Sometimes I am an embodied curiosity: I like to do things that are different, unexpected and with a touch of strangeness.
To do this assignment, I first had to research who I was as an illustrator. It is important to know who you are so you can present this to the rest of the class. I wrote down everything I could come up with that described me as an artist. The result was a very unorganised web of random words, interests and fascinations.
I have noticed that my illustrations always evolve around strong visions I have that can be only put to rest when I make it them visual. My head is basically a big storage of different fascinations where I draw inspiration from. And not only inside my head I am a collector, but also my room is filled up to the brim with random items. Anything that I find funny or interesting I take with me and use as a brick while building my world.
This time I thought I would be a nice idea to transform my box into a Cabinet of Curiosities that would show my love for collecting and would reflect what was going on inside my head. Sometimes I am an embodied curiosity: I like to do things that are different, unexpected and with a touch of strangeness. Bearing this in mind, I thought that the presentation form was very important, so I chose to perform and make my work interact with the audience.
My box became a sort of freak show, with a voice-over representing the "creative voice" in my head sounding like a ringmaster from a circus. I was an assistant, revealing all the curiosities and illustrations in my box bit by bit. It gave an entertaining aspect to the presentation - I interacted with my own voice that told me what to do.
I liked this assignment a lot because I had the chance to present my own world to an audience. It helped me find out more what kind of artist I'd like to become. I am glad the box presentation pushed me in directions that were not obvious.
