Anouk Van Wijk
HKU Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht
This is the ever unfinished, ever creating body
Anouk van Wijk's collection unifies colour and a unique mix of textures and fabrics.
While reading a manifest written by the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakhtin, I came across the following words “This is the ever unfinished, ever creating body”. These words provided me with some food for thought, what eventually became the starting point of my thesis, along with the thesis collection. I started thinking about seeing human beings as constantly evolving entities and researched the actual changes mankind has experienced during the evolution. Following this, I created my own utopian vision on the future of mankind wherein, as a result of constant alterations in appearance, labeling human beings along the axes of gender and ethnicity is no longer possible. Eventually, imposed identity will no longer exist. From this conceptual research, I extracted the design principles homogeneity and diversity, which I kept in mind while making choices considering color and shape. I wanted the people in my designs to look like a strong group, living in a world that’s free of prejudices. Using red as a unifying color made them look even stronger together. My choices for the fabrics and their manipulations where highly inspired by the human body and its functioning.
While reading a manifest written by the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakhtin, I came across the following words “This is the ever unfinished, ever creating body”. These words provided me with some food for thought, what eventually became the starting point of my thesis, along with the thesis collection. I started thinking about seeing human beings as constantly evolving entities and researched the actual changes mankind has experienced during the evolution. Following this, I created my own utopian vision on the future of mankind wherein, as a result of constant alterations in appearance, labeling human beings along the axes of gender and ethnicity is no longer possible. Eventually, imposed identity will no longer exist. From this conceptual research, I extracted the design principles homogeneity and diversity, which I kept in mind while making choices considering color and shape. I wanted the people in my designs to look like a strong group, living in a world that’s free of prejudices. Using red as a unifying color made them look even stronger together. My choices for the fabrics and their manipulations where highly inspired by the human body and its functioning.
