2024 retrospective

2024 was the first year I decided to start making an active effort to show my work in different offline places. Through doing this I discovered I have a passion for doing exhibitions and showing my work to people in real life.

Going into 2024, I set a goal for myself to, from this year on, show my work at at least two real-life locations per year. My reasoning being that this would be a great way to step foot in local art communities and make more connections with people who would not have found my work in another way.
As if planned beforehand, the artist collective of my hometown Gouda, De Firma, invited me, alongside others from my highschool art class to create a week long exhibition in their building.
This was an incredible opportonity for us and we took it very seriously, with us marketing our exhibition and working on it for about 6 months.
From organising this exhibition I learned a lot about collaborating with others in a creative process. Mainly that it is important to set up clear boundaries and expectations of everyone and to hold everyone accountable to doing their part. It was an overall very fun and exciting experience.

While I was still riding the emotional high of my first non-school related exhibition, I had to take my work to Utrecht to exhibit it at the Kaboom Industry days, held at the HKU Media buidling, where I go to school. With this second (admittedly smaller) exhibition, I had reached my goal of two exhibitions!

Going into 2025

Even though we are already halfway through february, I do not think it is too late to set some goals for this year. I will be keeping my goal of at minimum two exhibitions per year, but I will also take more time to manage a nice portfolio website and to network more with my peers. This means spending more time in the animation basement at school, which is always a blast.
Now, I have to mention that I have already planned three exhibitions this year, including my first solo exhibition! All very exciting and I will be sharing more about that soon.

For now I wish you all a wonderfull 2025!