top of page


Storytelling through the art of design research is investigating and uncovering a question through a non-scientific yet truth-seeking method, combining thick data with visual exploration. 
 

Who Are The Villains?

2022

- Graduation Project -

A double-faced fairy tale book using Little Red Riding Hood to give insight to the cultural conflict between feminism and incels.

WHAT Polarization is the increase in distrust between two opposing ideologies, not the increase in extremity itself. An example is the rise of inceldom over the last decade, that has coincided with the fourth wave of feminism. Incels (=involuntary celibates) are an online community of mostly heterosexual men who have created a communal identity around the lack of sexual relationships. With their own terminology and belief system, this community has produced a handful of mass murderers.

 

WHY As a woman (and feminist) myself, I have come to fear this phenomenon intensely, but not all incels are violent killers. In order to make this polarization insightful, the power of fairytales is used. The historical fairy tales are abundant with moral greyness, every character, whether hero or villain, could do good or bad things at any point in the story.

 

HOW Through showcasing the research and stories, the faceless threat shrouded in clouds will be transformed into a human being with its own backstory and psychological motivations. Is the one we see as the villain, a villain after all?

ASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM

2020

A visual reading journey through the world of books

WHAT A handbound book that shows, through abstract imagery, and tells, through short essays, the history of language, the written word, information carriers and.. books! Combining full spread images, taken in the production halls of printing office Albe de Coker in Antwerpen, with the easy-to-read text emerges you in the historical story of a medium and an object that has accompanied humanity for thousands of years.

 

WHY Most books are either books to read, or books to watch and flip through. As a visual designer and lover of theoretical history, Sascha felt the urge to let both ways of storytelling empower each other.

 

HOW Analysing the history of this much underrated cultural artefact allowed her to make her own prediction of the future of books, while at the same time sharing her love for the object with other book lovers out there. Unfortunately, the book is in Dutch, but Sascha would gladly love to share her knowledge with anyone who reaches out!

Becoming animal in 7 days

2022

- Graduation Project -

A giant book that aims to retell our human creation story: how we evolved from an animal into a ‘human being.’

- In collaboration with the Van Gogh National Park -

WHAT Through seven days, seven spreads, the reader is taken along the seven mayor turning points in history where we diverted from our animalness. Beginning in the cognitive revolution, where tribes of Homo sapiens grew bigger that allowed us to spread all over the globe, and ending with the technological revolution, where capitalism and humanism dictate our daily lives. A parallel is made with the creation story from The Christian Bible, since in our Western society this superiority complex over nature stems from this text for a great deal.

 

WHY As a species we have been separating ourselves from all the other animals for centuries. This perception is one of the main causes of the climate crisis, our self centered holiness clouds our empathy towards the world we inhabit. Ecologists and experts agree that, next to practical solutions in our fight against the climate crisis, a shift in perception is paramount.

 

HOW This giant book of 120 centimeters high is a totem, a figure head in retelling who we are as animals. The size of the book references the diptych, which was used in Christian churches to visualise complex stories during times when most people couldn’t read yet. 

Sine Wave

2017

A mixed-media film to make sense of purpose

WHAT Made during a formative period in my life where I was falling down a rabbit hole of nihilism and losing faith in humanity, this movie meant a lot to me on a personal level. It shows the vicious circle of repeating the same mistakes all over again. Yet a circle inhabits a wave in itself: a sine wave that has ups and down. This mathematic metaphor was a way of twisting my own assumptions, a first step on the road to recovering from existential depression.

 

WHY Coming of age is a period in people’s life that is generally quite disheartening or tough. Considering many belief systems, then preferring to choose none, having life questions for the first time and not knowing how to answer them. What is humanities’ purpose in life? How can I make the world better? Can the world even be made better, or have we gone too far? Why do we value what we value, is it all a big illusion? This animation was a way for me to share this thought process with others, giving it a place and a voice.

 

HOW Using painted stop motion, my own imagery and existing material, I merged multiple methods of videography together to create this piece. Portraying a floating planet Earth was chosen to visualise this floating feeling of non-purpose.

CLICK ON VIDEO FOR FULL SCREEN