This caused me to research the real mechanics of my inspiration and work methods. I feel I’m ready now to share this knowledge with students and emerging designers. Due to the nature of this subject, this can’t be in the form of a lecture, but will be an interactive workshop. I have found that if you start thinking with your mind, it’s much more difficult to go "out of the box". You are stuck in concrete practical data because your brain has been programmed to think logically. We'll do a couple of exercises to learn to rely more on your feelings. All the answers you have yourself but give them a chance to come to you. Give a design the chance to come to you and be surprised.

Speaker

Hanneke van de Kerkhof

Hanneke studied theatre design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tilburg, the Netherlands. She obtained her bachelor degree in 1998.

Hanneke exhibited her graduation project on “the boulevard of broken dreams” in Den Bosch and on "la Strada" in Gent during the yearly festival, “De Gentse Feesten”.This was an installation with which Hanneke invited the spectator to “look”, watch little fragments that could be interpreted in a different way by every individual. Because you’re not only watching with your eyes, images only get their meaning from the spectator’s experience, past and emotions. This also inspired Hanneke in her work to come. She was a member of several art collectives with which she made different installations. Hanneke works as a freelance designer for several theatre companies. She regularly works with Catrien Hermans,Peter van den Eeden, David Verbeeck, Frank van Laecke, for companies like Kunstencentrum Vlaams Fruit, Compagnie de Koe, Musical van Vlaanderen and Judasproducties “For me the set is not only the visual interpretation of a story.  I want to interact with the actors, allowing actors not only to play in the set, but play with the set.” Through her passion for spatial environment and her great desire to move on, she started to study interior design at the academy of fine arts in Antwerp and obtained her degree in 2012. There she discovered the possibilities of furniture design, which she developed in her own way. She is fascinated by the story behind furniture, not the use of it. “My work is best described as ‘applied art’. I think it is fascinating to invite people to do something with it, though it’s often not what it was intended for. For example, a chair you cannot sit on correctly. I want to tickle people’s imagination,make them laugh, put something into perspective, play, but most of all look in a different way, taking nothing for granted”