Applying the mindset, concepts, and approach of an artist to the challenges of the business world. That’s what students learn in the Artful Business Creations (ABC) minor offered at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. During a guest workshop, curator of the Art Collection Johan Nieuwenhuize challenged students to look at their environment, the building, and themselves in a different way through works from the collection.

What does a wall hear? What do people see when they briefly take you in? What influence does space have on your observation? Questions that introduced students to ‘Artistic Thinking.’ In the coming weeks, we will present the results of the workshop on our website!

This week, Alicia, Daniel, Elin, Justin and Sofia who took on Jeugdland noord, Amsterdam’ en ‘Ganzenhoef, Amsterdam’ van ‘Esther Kroon; the assignment in the photo led to the reflection as seen below.

“Exploring Perspective”

The assignment was an impulse to get out of our comfort zone and to reflect on how we look at people. It gave us the opportunity to connect two concepts, the concept of seeing and the concept of being seen, to be more precise, to be seen at eye level.

The work of Dutch photographer Esther Kroon shows children photographed at eye level. As a group we were interested to find out what it means to look at someone at eye level. How does subconscious prejudice or even judgment affect our first impressions of each other? At what point do we see ourselves as equals? How far can or impression be influenced solely by appearance?

We got interesting insights about ourselves as we walked around the campus talking to fellow students we hadn’t met before and letting them formulate their first impressions about us, which confirmed just how difficult it is to distance yourself from social, ethical or economical prejudice while talking to someone new.