Paul Mielke - 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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Paul Mielke - Gestures of Good

Can we complicate nationalised modes of commemoration, and counterpose its props and rehearsed performances?

Gestures of Good focuses on the wreath as an object at the centre of nationalised acts of commemoration: Performances which are constitutive for Germany's identity, as signifiers of a recurring thematization of and ‘coming to terms’ with the past. The project questions whether this ‘culture of remembering’ is subconsciously reinterpreted as an achievement rather than a duty by German society. A video work composed of a series of historical photographs shows the repetitive nature of these wreath-laying ceremonies to suggest a possible growing indifference towards the individual occasions. . The corresponding publication, introduced by personal memories of affective news imagery, compiles excerpts from archival books and magazines to juxtapose hues of German heritage. Herein, National Socialism is considered as omnipresent rather than a closed chapter, still graspable in everyday life, economy, or family history. This collection interrogates the notion of West Germany as ‘liberated’, as well as the unification of West and East as an alleged redemption moment: A ‘finally right’, another ‘becoming good’.