Huig Woudwijk
“Should I kill myself or have a cup of Coffee?”
This work shows a search for something that can’t be found. The absurd juxtaposition of the mind saying one thing while, at the same time, the soul says the opposite. I’m searching for still existing influences of my protestant upbringing. Once found I try to eliminate them to be able to start my search for the meaning of life on a clean slate. This searching and the unsureness of it is explored, depending on the question, in image or in text.
“Seek, and you shall find: more questions”
Thesis
Altermodern literatuuronderwijs. This thesis explores the current state of English literature education in The Netherlands and which positive role a curriculum based on Altermodern art education can play in this. The result of this research is a recommendation of an altermodern literature curriculum and a few examples of how that could be worked out. Further development can be made by moving on to a designing fase in which the curriculum could be thoroughly designed. The key concept of this altermodern approach is that literature education should be as inclusive, process-focused and student-motivated as possible to both reach more goals in the courses and to let the program have a better connection to the world of tomorrow in which the students are going to live. To reach those goals I took inspiration from the already existing altermodern art education and so the altermodern literature curriculum is also much more diverse in methods as the current curriculum is.
Vision
“Shall I kill myself,or have a cup of coffee?”
This quote may be hard to prove as an original Camus quote, however the meaning behind it is certainly in the line with Camus’ vision about life and its meaning, or better said, lack there off.
Throughout my period of studying here at Artez school of the arts I went through massive storms in my personal and religious believes. Disappointed and repulsed by the excuse for a religion I was raised in I decided to try and cut all the influences of it out of my life. It turned out to be a monstrous task. Because this cutting included the whole floor I was apparently standing on. Luckily I wasn’t alone on this path. The whole time Camus was there to hold my hand and anchor me amidst these roaring storms. I did not always agree with him and I’ve certainly read a lot more philosophers and writers but throughout this great changing his books always pointed me to the blessed possibility of creating my own meaning in the face of a laughing and indifferent universe.
So that’s what I did. I used art as a way of researching. I researched the Protestant influences that still remained in me as well as a multitude of books on meaning or lack there off. But this researching was private and so I wasn’t really making art yet, because art needs spectators. Or as I rather call them, players in the game of art. Then I realized that this searching of mine and this angst of mine isn’t something unique. In fact, I believe it to be universal and to have been around ever since men looked at the stars. So the communicative power in my work is in the communication of a universally known theme through a very personal story.
And I’m still working on that, finding a balance between writing and painting, providing context and leaving space for interpretation. This work is never finished as long as I’m alive and keep having questions (which I suppose will be until my death). I don’t try to make contemporary work and I don’t care a bit about being inventive. I don’t need to strive for that. All art inevitably is, but I rather focus on the timeless and universal aspects of my work.
The act if painting forces me to participate in this slow game of art and so it’s a perfect form for my reflective way of creating. The poems are to be seen as little thought experiments, they offer the right amount of context and they give you things to think about.
And for now, as long as I have questions to explore and share, one must imagine Huig happy.
Goal
With my work I intend to offer the spectator an experience that leads to reflection. I believe the search for meaning to be an universal search, not for everybody in the same way, but a search for everybody nonetheless. My work forms a confrontation with this theme. Where most days people go about their business and leave these thought for the drunk hours in the early morning, this work puts it in your face. I am in great doubt, and that terrifies me as much as it makes me feel fulfilled and I want to communicate this complicated and multilayered search. As a sort of byproduct of the chosen method I also communicate arts ability to function as the most free form of research. Not bound by scientific nor by logical restrictions, art gives one the opportunity to think outside the box and to form personal, complex yet recognizable works about nearly anything.
Ambition
I have several ambitions for the future. One of these ambitions already has a practical form, I want to teach and to develop meaningful art and literature curricula. I’ve found a job as an art teacher at a secondary school. In this job I can develop my vision on education further and develop material accordingly. Besides this I have the ambition to bring out a book of poems and art as a sort of travel sized form of my artistic research. I also want to continue studying, ideally as much subjects as I can but realistically I want to do a masters in philosophy or start another bachelor in history or English literature. And maybe most importantly: I hope to always stay open, critical and curious.
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