Imagining the world through the lens of loser and hoping for a better future
(2025)
author(s): Anna Pierga
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
My thesis is an attempt to create a bridge between my artistic practice and theoretical research behind its themes and topics. I highlight imagination as a tool to recreate one’s world in order to survive a hostile, success-oriented and normative daily reality. The text is divided into three main sections. Each focusing consecutively on childhood,
queerness and examples of imagination in fairy tales and artistic practices; all understood through the lens of failure. I look at childhood as a queer and highly creative universal experience of living on the edge of established social norms.
I draw on queer writtings such as Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstram and Cruising Utopia: Then and There of Queer Futirity by José Esteban Muñoz in search of utopia and longing for a better future.
In the final part of my thesis I refer to Ursula Le Guin’s essays on fantasy and science fiction, fairy tales and artistic practices. I explore various examples of failed heroes and the role of imagination in order to rewrite the present for a queerer future of more possibilities.
I Spy With My Little Eye : Speculative Image Making to Gain Vision Beyond the Ordinary Sight
(2025)
author(s): Sophie Allerding
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Photography & Society
This thesis deals with the questions what a speculative image is, what a speculative image-making practice could look like and to what extent speculative imagery can be a tool for future shaping. The responsibilities and possibilities of image makers are negotiated and three different tools for speculative image-making are presented.Different entry points into this world of thought are offered to the reader, through a manifesto and various appendices on practices of future predictions and tarot readings.
Hani Chladilová_And Suddenly, There Was Light
(2025)
author(s): Onyx Chladilová
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023
BA Photography
This thesis explores personal journey of the author’s healing
from sexual violence trauma through art making when conventional
therapy was not available. It is divided into two parts
where the first consists of descriptive-research-based writings,
while the second one provides the reader with personal writings
of the author.
The research-based part driven by a question How can
the process of art making help facilitate healing after experiencing
sexual violence firstly focuses on understanding trauma and
its causes and symptoms. Secondly, it provides understanding
of sexual violence, the barriers of reporting sexual violence, additionally,
it provides with understanding of how do survivors heal
from sexual violence induced trauma. Thirdly, it investigates releasing
and redirecting traumatic energy inspired by the writings
of therapist Peter A. Levine and outlines benefits of healing
through art making. Lastly, this part provides nine strategies
to avoid re-traumatization and to cope with potential triggers
when seeking to heal from trauma through art making.
The personal writings include thoughts, poems, notes
to self, and excerpts from a personal diary throughout author’s
endeavor to seek closure and become healed from sexual violence
induced trauma.
Overall, the thesis aims to inspire survivors of sexual violence
and other forms of trauma to include artmaking into their
journey of becoming healed.
From the tip of the tongue to the soles of the feet
(2025)
author(s): Laura Palau
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Photography & Society
'From the tip of the tongue to the soles of the feet' speaks about the processes of healing through the lived experiences of a handful of individuals, including myself. These experiences form the first stitches as we begin to care about our collectives traumas. By embodying grief, lending an ear to a healer and thinking along with nature this book addresses through photography the difficulty of distinguishing between reality and imagination when post-traumatic stress disorder and depression befalls.
Flâneur Commissie : On the Digital Mobilisation of Frozen Bodies
(2025)
author(s): João Henrique Viegas
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Photography & Society
This thesis is the result of research on two statues commissioned by collective bodies, of writers who, combined, wrote under more than 100 pseudonyms, after they died. Fernando Pessoa and Edward Elias, sculpted by António Lagoa Henriques and Theo van der Nahmer respectively.
These statues don’t serve the authors, so why were they built? How do they frame collective memory? How do we interact with them?
By connecting the story of these statues with theory on cultural identity, aura and counter-strategies for mobilisation this thesis explores possible interventions to negotiate these statues.
Extended Umwelt: a thesis on losing control and connecting to chaos
(2025)
author(s): Sarah Hoogman
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
BA Interactive Media Design
The complexity of nature is everywhere around us, from the microscopic, indeed invisible elements in the world, to the macroscopic, to the transhuman, to the supernatural. Sometimes it goes beyond our human perceptions, which for me, is a gateway to the realisation that there are so many more systems besides our intelligent human-controlled systems that are elusive to us. Imagine if we could perceive the world with a different perception. What if we could also sense the microscopic scale with our naked eye, or if we could receive light or sound outside our spectrum?
Suppose we become aware that everything around us is in constant motion of vibrations. Perhaps we would see that we as human beings are only one element of so many more elements in nature. In this way, could we let go of our control over the systems in Gaia and leave more room for nature’s chaos? The experience of receiving vibrations beyond our senses will help us to create a new perception of our human-centred perspective of the Anthropocene.
