Jenny Konrad - Non Linear Narrative 2022 -

The Non Linear Narrative master programme at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) merges investigative methods of journalism and forensics with processing technologies of computer science and visual arts into a contemporary, progressive design approach: the non-linear storytelling. It takes the entanglement of relations in the global information society as a starting point, in order to identify and interrogate complex socio-political issues and communicate them to a broad audience.

The programme repositions the graphic design discipline in the changing professional landscape and extends it with new responsibilities towards society. This year’s graduation show presents under the title Please Elaborate, the final projects of 12 young and emerging designers. To elaborate means ( ) to interpret, to experiment, to comment, to expand, to develop, to work out, to compare, to amplify, to improve, to enlarge, to complicate, to specify…

Spanning a range of media, exhibition formats and disciplines, the showpieces cover a multitude of subjects in order to unravel and demonstrate their complexities. As such, Please Elaborate is not only the title of the exhibition, but also the question the recent graduates often asked themselves in the process of making their works. In doing so, they responded with thoughtful and engaging comments to contemporary issues of gender equality, post-truth politics, sound pollution, global warming and neurodiversity. If you aren’t able to see the show in person, the exhibition will be also translated into a digital experience on nln.allinthistogether.online and a series of video interviews. Stay tuned via nln.kabk.nl.

Sound pollution, global warming and neurodiversity.If you aren’t able to see the show in person, the exhibition will be also translat-ed into a digital experience on nln.allinthistogether.online and a series of video interviews. Stay tuned via nln.kabk.nl

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Jenny Konrad - Taylor Ourselves Towards

Can one work out how it came about that capitalism has become our second skin?

There is a promise of social belonging and upward mobility in exchange for the performance of labor – a promise of a good life that will come from the ordinary life of basic employment. The promise that the good life is attainable as long as we just work hard enough. Capitalist culture lures us into this form of reciprocity between good life and labor, feeding a cruel optimism and persuading us to participate in the repetition of social gestures, even if these are hindering our own flourishing. As a materialized reflection, Tailor ourselves towards translates into an installation of our invisible attachment to the fantasy of all these promises, kept alive inside the essential scene of the office. Centering a "skin suit", Jenny Konrad traces the performative aspects of our ordinary lives as permanent employees. As we tailor our daily existence around a capitalistic assurance, we execute the gestures of being a good worker, in the hope that it will get us somewhere. The installation reveals our exposure to the office environment that gets under our skin, molding us, and how we endure and stay attached to it in spite of how it harms us.