Role models, stereotypes, and the question of identity – these were the themes of the exhibition Kartoffel by Phung-Tien Phan, which a class of the Schule für Gestaltung Basel dealt with during three busy mornings. After an intense oral exchange in front of the works, the students approached what they saw with different drawing exercises, looking for unique structures and materials. Strong simplifications and drawing abstractions gradually led to a visual language discussed, revised, and refined within an exchange. In teams of two, the class developed their shapes and symbols, inspired by the many patterns they had already encountered in the exhibition. From the resulting graphic products, the Kunsthalle Basel team selected the four most expressive positions, which were then available to a broad audience as silkscreen prints at the Flâneur Festival in September 2023:
Over 800 interested visitors of all ages participated in the public workshop during the Flâneur Festival. They printed the freshly designed motifs on bags, T-shirts, or jackets they had brought along. In addition to the four motifs available as screen prints, all of the class’s results were produced as temporary tattoos and were available for anyone interested in taking them home:
The Flâneur Festival provided a suitable platform for the design project: the forms of expression of the young people, who were about to embark on intensive design studies, were presented to a broad audience for the first time and had to prove themselves publicly. Form and content were tested – could the exhibition reference still be recognized? Was it reproduced, or were their ideas also processed?
The participants left the project with a wealth of experience, composed of newly discovered works of art and artistic positions and the development of their creative reaction and formal language to what they had seen.
The project was realized with the active support of Susanna Filep, a teacher at Schule für Gestaltung, and Aurel Fischer, an artist and designer.
Contributors:
Jasmin Barth
Eloise Berto
Aline Blanc
Mahara Brown
Nayra Gomez
Chihiro Greber
Leo Haldner
Ruth Klötzli
Charlotte Kunsemüller
Sebastian Leonte
Cheyenne Neuhaus
Michael Remensperger
Emma Rodewald
Joel Rolli
Marina Ropero
Johanna Steiner
Maxime Tricase
Joann Winzeler
Diego Zengaffinen
Alois Zintgraf