Spring Together on summer solstice
Initiated by the Student Council, the festivity is the bookend event to the Opening Academy Year that happens every September. It is a way to create a collective moment for one last soiree after a busy year where spending time together is often a rarity.
Second year in the running, and for the first time, this year’s event is organised in collaboration with other students initiatives — partly possible with the newly established Community Experiment Grant, spearheaded by Community Organiser Pete Fung, which supports education through extracurricular activities, giving guidance and financial subsidies toward student-run collectives, workshops, publications and events.
One of such collective is the Fermentors, initiated by the now Social Design graduate Monja Simon. Informed by her thesis research around the home fermentation of Sauerkraut in the Black Forest in southwest Germany, the Fermentor is a community stown away on the in-between floor of the Academy, fermenting a collection of cultures and social relations of care. During the event, the collective provided a selection of locally brewed kombucha as the alcoholic alternative.
Tutti is another collective supposed by the Community Experiment Grant, created by first year BA student Tereza Hubova. Tutti organises monthly communal cooking and dinning events for those who otherwise couldn’t, to cook together. For Spring Together, Tutti arranged a summer feast which allowed students to graze straight from the specially arranged long table. They were encouraged to pick their way through strawberries, cucumbers, celery sticks, hummus and more. All laid out in perfect circles before they slowly dissipated as the evening went on.
As the sun began to cast some long shadows on the late afternoon, attendees entered the fifth floor, which is usually preserved for educational purposes. They could find themselves guided by the long ropes dangling from the elevator frames thought the half-disassembled graduation projects, all the way to the event space, where they were greeted by the expended web of ropes hanging from the ceiling, symbolically connecting the various student initiatives who contributed to the event. This is the intervention of second year BA student Chantal Kluitman.
Other student initiatives such as the Trash Club and Bzar also chipped in to the spatial installation. Bzar the Material Bank of DAE lent reusable material for everything the event needed, ensuring a zero waste affair, further cementing their attitude towards a local and circular economy of material.
The Trash Club was there to provide games, made from, of course, what is commonly considered ‘trash’. DAE’s own Diversity and Inclusivity Officer Leigh Tukker was the first to attempt the challenge of using a fishing rod with a balloon to retrieve a bottle cap and deposit it in a cup. The Trash Club, comprising members second years BA students Rosetta Penna, Elie Seksig, Hyunjoo Lee, Noam Hasak-Lowy, and Adèle Visser, organised these endeavours. The club’s mission revolved around finding and repurposing discarded items, embodying the dumpster diving collective spirit. The collective had also established a comfortable ‘chill zone’ for the event, furnished with salvaged foam benches.
Combini, another student food collective, had the most theatrical and performative eating experience of the evening. They served their upside down rice dish, countering to convenient culture. Members Cosi Wider and Alissa Saito executed the turnover beautifully, and the food was distributed efficiently and effectively to those close by.
Last but not least the atmosphere was enliven by the tunes of "Let’s Dance”. Elevator Radio fulfilled the role of providing music for the evening with members Guanyan Wu and Nobey de Sousa Costa serving as the DJs and Zoé Bruhat as techecial support. Students frequented the pop-up bar, initiated dance-offs and unified dancing while Head of MA Ilse Meulendijks, Head of BA Janneke Schreuder and student councillor Olga Pullins graciously joined in for friendly competitions.
The evening concluded with an announcement, revealing that someone had correctly guessed the number of buttons filling a suitcase placed on the floor. Dani Monidero emerged as the winner, however the exact answer remains undisclosed.
On behalf of the community, DAE would like to take a moment in extending our appreciation and congratulation towards the Student Council in organising a very successful edition of Spring Together. Thank you Adéle Visser, Adi Romański, Benji Sheppard, Lena Kamińska, Rupert Jasper!
