In the last part of our series, we steer apart from applied genres a bit and turn towards autonomous works that can be interpreted more subjectively. We selected animation films and illustrative projects that even though are inspired by personal experiences can address all of us with their visual world and narrative. This week’s selection features the problems of the home, adolescence, cultural differences and social relationships in the form of animation movies, an interactive platform and a silent book.
Design is everywhere, may it be in a visual, physical, spatial, digital form or in the shape of an event. It is about our everyday objects, formal and technological experiments, about social responsibility, visual education, local values, modernity, processes triggering change and many other things that define our everydays, the image perceived of our environment and society at the same time. To showcase this, we hand-picked our favorites from the diploma projects of this year’s graduating designers of Hungarian art universities: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, the Media and Design Department of the Visual Art Institute in Eger, Budapest Metropolitan University and the Institute of Applied Arts of the University of Sopron. Our Best of diploma 2020 article series will thematically present a group of the most exciting works of Hungarian designers each week.
Eszter Szőcs – Memoria Aeternae (MAE)
(Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design)
Only we know the tiny details and unique atmosphere of our room truly; these spaces are personified by memories and daydreaming. Eszter Szőcs’ interactive online platform, Memoria Aeternae (meaning: for eternal remembrance) evokes this daydreaming, allowing us to generate illustrative, dream-like visualizations with the help of five varying elements. The images are the visual projections of the artist’s personal impressions, accompanying her from leaving the family home, to the series of moves across countries, but the colors and the familiar shapes can easily involve us, too, into the process of remembering. Many times if we think of our homes, it is not the exact image of our room that appear before our eyes, it is rather the details, the stories experienced in our homes and the feeling associated with the years spent in the place that we remember. Even though the project is strongly personal and subjective, it can still be interpreted in the context of our universal concept of home, as it displays associative images that can recall various feelings in all of us.
Eszter Szőcs | Web | Instagram | Behance
Erik Pál – Mária
(Visual Art Institute Eger)
The majority of girls in Burkina Faso, South Africa are married off by their parents around the age of 11-12 for money or in exchange for other services. The girls forced to marry usually don’t get to go to school and are expected to raise children while they are children themselves, too. Erik Pál’s animated short movie titled Mária features a story like this. The movie is based on Noémi Kiss’ short story “Sipoly”, published by Amnesty International in Volume 2 of their title “Tíz igaz történet” (Ten True Stories). The narrated short story adaptation tells the story of Maria, a little girl becoming a wife, from her own perspective. Burkina Faso is one of the countries in Africa where the ancient ethnic groups still preserve tribal culture: these symbols echo through the movie, the scenes of which are brought to life by children’s drawings. The flashback quoted from the short story and the motion picture accompanying the same confront us with the human rights violations taking place in the world as well as the differences between our cultures.
Erik Pál | Web | Instagram | Behance
Réka Anna Szakály – Reduction
(Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design)
Réka Anna Szakály’s animation Reduction tells the story of two girls with a single goal: to get to the other side perceived as livable and promising the future from the postapocalyptic world. One of them is cornered by an unknown creature who ends up taking control over the girl, thus, losing her old relationship, she can only cling to the dream surrounding the other side. The figures of the possessive, toxic, controlling being as well as that of the girl abandoned and the girl longing to get away demonstrate the changeability of our roles and behaviors and the fragility of our human relationships.
Réka Anna Szakály | Facebook | Instagram | Behance | Vimeo
Fanni Sipos – Puparium
(Budapest Metropolitan University)
“Being a teenager is not easy, everything turns upside down in this phase of life” – says Fanni Sipos in relation to her diploma project. The Puparium – Josuko’s 730 days is a silent book, that is, a book without written text, on the hardships of adolescence. Even though the book is about teenagers, it may also be interesting for adult readers, as it can help them dissolve the stereotypes associated with today’s teenagers. The book tells 730 days of a teenager in three chapters. The surveys, observations exploring teenage years and the creator’s own experiences all contributed to developing the plot. The chapters of the book focus on the topics of loneliness, school bullying, sudden responsibilities, online presence, search for identity and love. A colorful world comes alive around the dark characters, sometimes displaying a strange, lush scenery, Puparium, where the problems of the characters seem to resolve.
Unusual conceptuality | Andrej & Andrej
Sustainable water taxi on the Danube
