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?
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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.
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Do You Need It All?
2018
A conversation tool for a polluting industry
WHAT A red carpet knitted from waste from Eindhoven’s Clothing Bank. People with a smaller purse can pick up clothes for free at this charity institution, yet more clothing comes in than goes out, resulting in an abundant stream of waste ending up in big heaps in third world countries that don’t necessarily want all these scraps. This waste was used in hand knitting a red carpet, in collaboration with volunteers from the Clothing Bank, along with a DIY manual on how to repurpose your own old clothes.
WHY In order to repair the clothing industry, we need to repair the consumer mindset. But how do you get people to see the pile of fashion waste when brands rather have people spend their money endlessly? Showing people the scale of the problem is a way more powerful method than by just telling them. Confronting them while shopping was even more fun.
HOW The red carpet was placed in between the Zara and the Bijenkorf, two of the biggest Dutch clothing stores or warehouses. Being 11 meters long and 1 meter wide, it’s scale was very present and eye-catching. Through dialogues with the passerby’s, the carpet and the designer joined forces in creating a moment for conversation.
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The Many Faces Of Time
2021
A conversation and reflection tool for the subjective experience of time.
WHAT Stop-motion animations that can be used as screensavers or projections. Individual people have their own inner realm of how they perceive time. It has many faces: sometimes it goes faster, very often it goes slower, depending on the internal and external factors affecting a person. Some factors seem to affect multiple people, especially during the pandemic. Being in one space for a longer time, the lack of a clear routine, the lack of milestones, and so on, have made it that the sense of time has been distorted for many people.
WHY We have a lot of ways to communicate our senses, but we don’t have a tool to share our sense of time yet. When people begin to reflect about time and their own personal definition of it, it opens up their hidden priorities and sets up change.
HOW The animations that can be used as a screensaver, which can be downloaded on a website. Each animation visualises the ‘mechanics’ of one specific time factor. These animations can also be used in a public landscape where people have some time to spare, such as train and bus stations.
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Eindhoven De Mooiste!
2021
An open-air museum experience of the ‘citizen made culture’ of Eindhoven.
- In collaboration with the Van Gogh National Park and City Circles -
WHAT A social platform that provides a new pair of glasses to experience Eindhoven with. People in the city of Eindhoven decorate and personalise the exteriors and facades of their houses. City planners and architects have designed the homes, but the inhabitants add their own layer on top and are the ones that ultimately decide what the final street view feels like. In this sense, we can see their personalisations as the purest form of local, visual culture.
WHY Citizens and their art and culture can be overlooked quite often. By giving them a stage we refocus our view on what culture is, allowing people to rediscover Eindhoven, merging them into the VGNP experience. Next to that, spreading out tourists over a larger area is a highly sustainable form of tourism.
HOW A guide map that allows curious citizens and tourists to experience Eindhoven through routes and interviews. Next to that there is an online platform where local inhabitants can share their stories and build a database of interesting places to visit. This online platform can be used as an extension of the guide map.
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This website was designed and created by Sascha Lammerts (2024).
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