Breitner Themaweek 23/24: A Bigger Splash! week of making in undivided attention

Internet, streaming services, smartphones and social media constantly beg for attention and make sure we are always on. How do you find a way to go offline to stay in charge? 

Art requires focused attention. However, the art of focused attention is less and less obvious. To be creative, you need space and time as well as the courage to go deep and slow down. It requires dedication to lose yourself in an environment, action, material or thought. Students say they find this difficult. This theme week is about making art with radical attention and training the attention muscle: a digital detox to fully engage in the act of making. Transform digital habits into analogue variants without distracting and time-consuming technology. Deepen yourself by having to do less and use your body as a medium.
 

The artistic direction of the week is in the hands of curator and author Lieneke Hulshof. She has invited six artists for a series of immersive workshops, in which students will delve into a specific strategy of making: Susanne Khalil Yusef , Philip Akkerman, Shertise Solano, Sema Bekirovic, Joran van Soest, Caroline Ruijgrok. These artists make visual art from a great diversity in approach, discipline and subject matter while having in common that they all work with radical attention. 
 

The theme week concludes with an exhibition open to the public, curated and decorated by the students themselves, in collaboration with the duo Maison the Faux. Besides the exhibition, there is a magazine in which Lieneke Hulshof gives a place to the views found during the project week. 

A magazine as a reference work for the students and a booklet that can inspire students and artists outside the academy on the question: 'What does it take to get into making'? Lieneke Hulshof interviewed the participating artists, students and teachers about the views that were shared during the week in order to give them a place in the magazine.