Last DAI week
Hot on the heels of the Kunstvlaai opening at the weekend, this week has been my last ever DAI week, although I will be back for a few days in July for assessments. Strangely enough it didn’t bring on too many feelings of nostalgia, probably because it still seems quite a long way until the real end of my studies.
In any case, there was plenty going on. We started a day later than usual because of Pinkster (I believe it’s called Whitsun in English although I had never heard of it before coming here), jumping straight into action with a “green light” day for the second year students. This was to be a kind of informal presentation at which we would outline the work that we intend showing at the final exams, as well as giving an update on our progress with the thesis, website, and publication.
I was the last on the list, which gave me the whole day to sit getting nervous while awaiting my turn. As it happened it went fairly OK, but as usual I ended up speaking much too fast and showing too much work. Some hard choices will need to be made before the exams. Focus, focus, focus!
Wednesday was studio visit day, with a few interesting chats about my robot project with a few of our visiting tutors. This was followed by a really nice lecture by an artists named Sands Murray-Wassink, interesting in that was something of a performance and not just the usual chat with slides.
On Thursday morning I had a meeting with a tutor from the university about my publication, before travelling through to Amsterdam with the other students from the Here As The Centre Of The World group to once again be present at the Kunstvlaai. This was rather a long trip for such a short few hours, but was made a bit less senseless by a visit to a book launch of occasional DAI guest lecturer Delphine Bedel. Tempting though it was to stay for drinks afterwards, the fact that we needed to be back in Enschede the next morning convinced me to take the last train back, ready to fall asleep exhausted at the DAI house around 1am.
Finally, Friday saw the last of Sanne van Rijn’s performance workshops. As the months have worn on, we have perhaps come out of our shells a little bit, and we were certainly quite enthusiastic and energetic this time. It has certainly been a great experience and a welcome change from lectures in the windowless project room.
Nice though it would have been to stay an extra night and relax a bit, family business meant a Friday evening return to Amsterdam. It’s not quite time to be bidding farewell to Enschede, but the end is in sight.
