Hi! I'm Nicole!

I'm 21 years old, stuck in Zuidplein atm and a 2nd year illustration student!

Quarantine has been pretty good for me so far: for the first time in my life I do not have to think about any upcoming deadlines, plannings, people I have to see... I guess you could say I am very in the moment.

I have been going for a lot of walks.
I walked past an area that was supposed to be closed off, but everyone was still hanging out, which resulted in this ironic photo.

My roommate and I went on Omegle to see what it was like there during quarantine.

Notes from

Designs fo the Pluriverse
Arturo Escobar

We live in a world where everybody has to design and redesign their existence;
hence, the goal of design becomes the support of individual and collective life projects.

(...) between diffuse and expert design—diffuse de-sign refers to the fact that everybody is
endowed with the ability to design, expert design to professional design knowledge.

I think that what social innovation is indicating, with its idea of well-being based on the quality of places and communities,
is the seed of a new culture. Or better, of a metaculture which could be the platform for a multiplicity of cultures [a pluriverse?]

(...) Its practices are conducive to the design of coalitions in which visionary
capacity, dialogic process, and difuse and expert design knowledge are all interwoven, with designers playing the role of facilitator, activist, strategist, or
cultural promoter, depending on the circumstances and the character of the
coalition at play.

Olafur Eliasson

Ice Watch

"Twelve large blocks of ice cast off from the Greenland ice sheet are harvested from a fjord outside Nuuk and presented in a clock formation in a prominent public place. The work raises awareness of climate change by providing a direct and tangible experience of the reality of melting arctic ice. Ice Watch has been installed in three locations."

https://olafureliasson.net/arh
hive/artwork/WEK109190/ice-watch

The Weather Project

The FEMENist Connection

Question: How can society in the future be a collaborative design project, without exluciding anyone?

"FEMEN embraces the commodification of women's sexuality as and empowerment tool over men (including policemen arresting the activists), against domination, and also as a media tactic to gain visibility. FEMEN protests are staged performances where activists have a specific spot to reach, specific positions to hold and messages to shout. The activists perform positions of powerful women, warriors in the name of women, and also strategically ensure strong images to be spread by media. (...)"

"(...) to be a feminists in girl power media culture is about being a confident woman acting on her ambitions and willing to suceed in society and life."

"In Western globalized media culture, the provocative protest method of displaying messages on naked bodies creates a striking effect: on every image that one can find on the internet and on the news, whether it shows an activist in an empowered pose or arrested (sometimes tackled) by a policeman, the message inscribed on the bodies is always on the picture (see fig. 5). The words cannot escape the image, they are inextricably linked."

"In Western globalized media culture, the provocative protest method of displaying messages on naked bodies creates a striking effect: on every image that one can find on the internet and on the news, whether it shows an activist in an empowered pose or arrested (sometimes tackled) by a policeman, the message inscribed on the bodies is always on the picture (see fig. 5). The words cannot escape the image, they are inextricably linked. The awkwardness created by naked bodies in a public performance act juxtaposed to strict uniforms of bodies in charge of control and restrain is also a common component of the media coverage of FEMEN. Is it joy on the policeman’s face to encounter unusual protesters displaying eroticized bodies? Is it discomfort created by empowered nudity? FEMEN actions keep provoking disturbance, be it playful as it seems in figure 5, or more violent as they are forcefully removed and insulted by some members of the public."

"FEMEN actions are transgressive even within feminist thought: they are criticized by contemporary feminist groups and thinkers largely because of their use of the male gaze for their actions in the nude. FEMEN seeks empowerment and agency through a re-appropriation of women’s image via sensuality, sexuality, and sexiness."

"A transnational feminist group with no inclusion of diversity reproduces a hierarchy of white/slim/able-bodied women over all others and counteracts the claim to fight for all women’s freedom."

"(...) However, FEMEN’s provocation seems to divide people more than leading a revolution, and never links its “breasts as weapons” tactics to previous ones in history (the bra-burning image of 1970s feminist protests, or African women exposing nudity to remind men they also come from that body; see Bard)."

T U N I N G  I N

I have tuned in with several people during this time.

I was supposed to go to Poland to visit my family, but because of the situation I have to wait. I did write my family letters. In one of their last letters to me, the explained the situation:
























Besides the letter I got from my aunt, I also know that Poland is completely closed off. The political situation there right now is complicated. Westerners see it as a problem, while the Polish people feel very good and nationalistic about how their country is being handled. I can hear the tone of the country in my mom's words: "In Poland we handled it better compared to the Western countries where so many people got the disease. We immediatly closed our borders and managed to controle it."

(...)

Right now we can not go anywhere. Everybody is scared of one another. The grocery stores are filled. People have to wait in line with 1,5 m distance, one after another. People barely go by bus or tram. There are little people on the street. Everyone is in their houses, because they are afraid of getting infected with the virus. If everybody in the whole world would stay at home, then we could maybe get the virus under control. It is up to us how long this will last.

(...)

I don't think it's a good idea for you to come to Poland right now. Maybe during another holiday? It's too big of a risk right now to travel to another country. We should stay at home. Here in Poland the students get their classes through the internet. The universeties are closed. Everything is closed anyway, except for the grocery stores.

(...)

NATURAL WAYS OF COMMUNICATION

I got reminded of this book a friend once told me a about (I haven't read it), about the communication of trees.

According to this book, trees communicate with eachtother: they can send nutrients to sick trees, know when to use more or less water and know the overall conditions of the forest and how they should respond to that.

Somehow birds manage to fly in these huge flocks, all knowing which way to go, resulting in some crazy views.

A force outside of our world manages to move the sea: the moon, causing ebb and flow.

Bees impregnating other flowers (:

Melting ice is a response from the earth towards climate change. Everything is action and reaction.

Volcanos errupting, causing new land to exist.

I read that nature always uses the easiest wsy to get something done. As well on a very small atom level, as in our world. I thought this was pretty interesting thought.

EXERCISE

2

EXERCISE

3

Surprisingly a lot less dicks, and a whole lot of more people who actually want to have a conversation!

EXERCISE

4

This plant is called Klit in Dutch, which could translate to Velcro. It is called like this because the bulbs you see here attach to bypasser as Velpro. Inside of the balls there are seeds. My dad always threw them on me for fun.

ART EXHIBITION DURING CORONA

My friend's parents have a restaurant,that they are preparing to make completely corona-proof before they open again. One of the measurements they have to take is placing see-through screens between the tables. In Dutch we call them 'spatschermen' which translates to 'splashscreens', refering to people's saliva splashing onto the screens.

They had the great idea to invite illustrators from all over the country to make art on the screens. With this they made a little exhibition: van twee kanten (from two sides).
I was invited too with a classmate. When I was there I met Rogier Rogers and his girlfriend Samantha. It was great to finally be in a creative environment again.

You can see how the frames hang infront of the tables. It's a great way of being able to dine, look at hart, stay stafe and communicate with other people during this time.

EXERCISE

5

Being 'seen' makes it easier for the artist to approach people and force them to look at the work. This way the work could come to the people. It is easier to have conversations and ask and answer questions this way. But it is also dangerous, because your face will be recognized and linked to a particular action or work.

Being 'unseen' could make it easier for people to approach a work, if there is nobody there who is going to talk to them or drag them into something they don't want. But it could also be ignored by people. The work should be compelling enough to get people's attention.

This is a map of all the places I go. One thing that has really changed in my lifestyle is going for walks. I go on big walks with my roommate, most of the time to the park. But sometimes we decide to walk super far and we walk all the way from Zuidplein to the city center.

Together with Ceciel I tried to think of a performative action. We thought of the idea to hang papers around our neighborhoods with reminders or relatable quotes about this time with a little illustration. We wanted to do this, because we thought of the people who were having a hard time during this 'corona-time'. We wanted to spread fun little messages that hopefully would brighten up somebody's day and hopefully would make them feel a little less alone in this.

We wanted to do something 'unseen', because we thought it would be hard to personally interact with people during this time. Since we both do illustration, we thought spreading fun illustrations around town would be a great idea!

Before our final idea, I first thought of a way to fuck around with the corona rules, like the arrows on the ground in stores, taping off certain areas, or the circles you see here. I thought of making fun of it, because nobody seems to take it seriousy.

When I walked in the park, I saw these crazy big circles. I couldn't figure out what it was. After 10 minutes I realized these are circles where people are supposed to sit in if they want to hang out on the grass while still keeping distance.

I ended up not really liking the idea. It wasn't something I would normally do and I felt uncomfortable with doing it.

I'm glad Ceciel requested to do something with our major. Drawing is what I like doing most afterall. I had a lot of fun with coming up with illustrations and sentences.

We wanted more interaction than people just looking at it, so we created an instagram:



With each illustration we put a note inviting people to also write down something they experienced during corona. If they left a message, we would turn it into an illustration!

So we hung illustrations in our neighborhoods and waited to see if we got any responses...

When we checked on our drawings later, we got more responses than we expected!

We also got some stupid responses, but we saw it coming.

Some of our drawings also got removed...

But luckily we mostly got positive reactions!

One of the things I did at home was making a small animation movie for my project, please check it out! (: 

This is what my stay-at-home studio looked like.

(this is a video)

We talked to a Belgian guy. Belgium is in completely lock down and they can not leave their houses. The guy worked at a supermarket, so he still had to work. He told us he wasn't allowed to visit his girlfriend. If he did and he would get caught, they could arrest him. He told us spitting or coughing on purpose is forbidden and can get you a fine. He told us a story about guys who didn't want to listen to the police and started spitting on them as a defense...

We talked to a kid, also in Belgium, whose parents were divorced and he now was stuck with his dad he didn't like very much. He had a little brother who he seemed to care about a lot. We talked to him about his feelings towards his dad. It was actually kind of upsetting.

We talked to a man who also had a divorce. He had 2 children who were now at this ex wife's place. He was really upset about it. We talked about the relationship he had with his kids. We figured the reason he was on omegle was because he was probably really sad and lonely.

We had a lot of different conversations on Omegle, but these were the most noteworthy things I heard:

You can check out our instagram to see what new illustrations we have made!

I grouped with Maya for the resit period. After all these months of isolation it was refreshing to work together again.
Since the lockdown was basically over for her, while I was already back in Armenia in a full quarantine, we couldn’t relate the COVID isolation of April anymore. First, we had the idea of doing a projection mapping and sharing thoughts of people on buildings, so basically having the contrast of small bits of personal thoughts on big, uncomfortable spaces. This took us to a conversation about our current situations, and we realized that, in a way, we have similarities in our background: some current political heat, the socialist past, a lot of abandoned spaces.
We thought it’s more relevant and more open (educational, why not) to combine our current situations, common historical past and connect our project to it.

Also, we noticed how the quarantine detached people from the world, as everyone was literally interacting with their own close, small environment (room, laptop screen), so we wanted to create a space where people could just share simple images from their lives and see, learn what life is like in other parts of the world.


We thought of making collages with all these scenes/buildings and distribute it as posters around with short texts about human survival/class struggle/social conditions, however, not in a very sophisticated way.
For collecting images and sharing with people, we thought opening an Instagram and taking people’s submissions of places they live in, or just images from their city that mean something to them. This could be an Instagram page for instance. That would also allow to create a network and share personal images of scenery, to make these collective images (collages) and talk about really simple, human actions and encourage humans to share their visual environments with each other and think about questions, especially after/during a pandemic that has made us question a lot.

Our audience is every citizen, every person who evern walks around or just wonders how people further than they are living.