Graduation Show 2018

This summer over 160 graduates in Fine Arts and Design, coming from fourteen departments, will show their graduation work during our Graduation Show 2018. Their art will be displayed across 3 building with a total surface of 5,5000 square meters.

From a canvas replica of Trumps wall between the United States and Mexico* to a fashion project that copies ads from magazines**, but then with jeans and white t-shirts instead of haute couture.

*Confronting Occupation by Mariana Fernández
“Working with a real size print of one of the prototypes for the border wall along the frontier between Mexico and the United States, I occupy public space trough a performance. I confront both the environment and the people in it with the physical dimension of the project, as a way to begin to understand and question the human implications of a plan of this magnitude.

During the event, both the performers and the public become estranged from each other and uncomfortable by the action of occupying and the occupation itself. The Print then becomes the centre of everything that surrounds it and turns around the roles of the familiar and the other.

By taking the prototype out of its context and confronting it with a new one, I search for a way for people to imagine this happening in their reality—their own country, city, neighbourhood—and consequently, to challenge our fear of the other, the roles we play in public space and the empowerment through its occupation. I use big format colour print in pvc mesh, dimensions: 9 x 9 meters.”

**A March Issue by Sonia Oet and Line Arngaard
“A March Issue is a graduation collaboration between two students from the Rietveld Academie: Sonia Oet (fashion) and Line Arngaard (graphic design). The project is made possible because of dedication and skills from 20 photography students. They (and many others) have helped us to realise the project by capturing hundreds of local people in the environment of the academy and around Amsterdam.

The project is a remake of British Vogue March 2018—cover to cover—replacing every image in the magazine with people wearing white t-shirt and blue jeans. The archetype of modern clothing; white t-shirt and blue jeans is the canvas for rethinking the glossy magazine and analyzing its features. A critical yet playful approach to the portrayal of fashion and people in mainstream fashion media. A study of every movement and gesture in the original magazine recontextualized in the framework of a modern uniform, choice reductionand fashion detoxing.

Fashion magazines such as Vogue have a wide audience. We think that the results of this experiment deserve to have the chance to be shared with anyone who has ever held a glossy fashion magazine in their hands. Our remake of Vogue is a look into the underlying structures of fashion publishing and offers an honest, direct and relatable reflection on the poses and the people portrayed. By removing the ’fashion’ from a fashion magazine what is left? Have a look through A March Issue and judge for yourself.”