Field Essays Wintergarden clown workshop

During this year’s Wintergarden*, students of TXT (textile department) and designLAB** joined together for a clown workshop led by Ivan Hannetin. Some reactions:

“ It was me, but not me.”
“ Even nonsense has some sense in it.”
“ Clown is about being, not thinking, feeling the moment, expressing raw emotions, not lying, playing to lose control, learn to look again, be aware of what’s happening around, share time without speaking, discover each other’s inner worlds, giving attention to very simple things, creating something with almost nothing.”
“With clown you work with what you are. There’s no stage, there’s no wall, this is it.”

Images by Roel van Tour

* The Wintergarden is an initiative to break open the study programme through a series of workshops and field trips; I developed it together with Erik Wong and Giene Steenman. Other alternative education models conceived during my years as a coordinator are the Travelling Academy (with Bas van Beek & Cathelijne Montens & Krijn Christiaansen) and the Lab Sessions (work sessions focussing on process rather than result).

** designLAB is the bachelor design course I run at the Rietveld Academie Amsterdam since 2005