A balance between fragility and strength

Friday, November 15, 2024, 6 p.m., an international jury selected three students from the University of the Arts (HfK) Bremen as Frese Design Award winners: Anisha Gattnar, Saeyeon Kim and Marcela Antipan Olate. In addition, Milena Anna Breiter, Minji Yu and Ruben Lyon were honored for their work with the Frese Design commendations.
 

All six winners are graduates of the HfK's Integrated Design and Digital Media degree programs and will be presenting their final projects with 40 fellow students in the annual exhibition in Speicher XI A and in the Auditorium, the Flut and Nebenflut galleries in Speicher XI at the HfK Bremen until November 24, 2024.
 

The Frese Design Prize has been awarded to young designers at the HfK Bremen since 2014. It helps to make graduates from the Department of Art and Design visible nationally and internationally with their work, to promote their creative commitment and to support their career start.
 

The Frese Design Prize includes prize money of 5,000 euros for the 1st prize, 3,000 euros for the 2nd prize and 2,000 euros for the 3rd prize.
 

1st place: Anisha Gattnar (Master's degree in Integrated Design)
Title: “Stülp - the body on the left”, artistic medium: installation/sculpture
Professors: Olav Westphalen and Martin Schulz
Jury statement:
 

“We were impressed by the poetic approach and the ability to translate a personal story into something we can all share. The confident use of wood and the acceptance of its limitations create a balance between fragility and strength that appeals to the viewer's senses. The sculpture is not so much a representation of the body, but a body itself. The jury congratulates and commends the artist's courage to address a sensitive subject with such a bold choice of form and content, while giving the audience space to approach and connect with it.”
 

2nd place: Saeyeon Kim (Bachelor's degree in Integrated Design)
Title: “153”, artistic medium: illustration/graphics
Professors: Samuel Nyholm and Heike Kati Barath
Jury statement:
“The jury congratulates the artist on her success in dealing with an underestimated topic in a visual and discursive language that may seem simple, but is far from it. We find it particularly convincing how this simplicity works in a way that captivates the viewer. She works with a very skillful style that manages to condense wit and humor without words, turning the perspective on being small or large completely on its head. From a technical point of view, we liked the playful handling of the differences in size between the original drawings and the publication; the images convey themselves well in any size in which they are presented.”
 

3rd place: Marcela Antipan Olate (Master's degree in Digital Media)
Title: “Mediciones*: Exploration 01” (*measurements), artistic medium: Performance
Professors: Andrea Sick and Ralf Baecker
Jury statement:
“We found the decision to address the complexity of the modern/colonial obsession with measuring and taxonomizing particularly important. This was implemented in an excellent way by staging the human body as a counterpart to the supposed 'objectivity' of measuring devices. We particularly appreciate the playful approach to stability and instability through the engagement with the wooden boards in the performance. Nonetheless, we recognize that the work should be presented with more time and space and applaud the aesthetic choices made in the design of the brochure.”
 

Special commendations go to Milena Anna Breiter, Minji Yu and Ruben Lyon.
 

Milena Anna Breiter (Bachelor's degree in Integrated Design): “You are an animal, Z. An illustrated conjecture”, illustration/graphics, Professor:innen: Samuel Nyholm and Katrin von Maltzahn
Jury statement: “‘You are an animal...’ captivated the jury with its sensitive and delicate imagery while offering a witty and novel perspective on the boundaries of animism.”

Minji Yu (Bachelor's degree in Integrated Design): “TRANSFORMER”, Product Design, Professors: Andreas Kramer and Alexander Sahoo
Jury statement: “‘Transformer’ impressed the jury with its consistency in the design process from the initial sketches to the final product; the presentation emphasized a narrative structure that we all found very compelling and convincing.”

Ruben Lyon (Bachelor's degree in Integrated Design): “White Sport and Second Home”, installation/publication, Professor:inside: Tania Prill and Samuel Nyholm
Jury statement: “In dealing with the micro-history of an otherwise unknown Jewish tennis player, ‘White Sport and Second Home’ offers a combination of an emotional narrative and a visual language that the jury found concise and strong.”
 

The jury:

Saskia van der Meer is an interdisciplinary designer. Immediately after completing her bachelor's degree at the HfK Bremen, she taught there for two semesters before graduating with a diploma in communication design and exhibition design/scenography from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. She currently lives as a graphic designer in Rotterdam.

Julia Bulk studied art history and German language and literature in Cologne and London. She has headed the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Foundation in Bremen since 2014.

Pedro Oliveira is a researcher and sound artist engaged in an anti-colonial study of listening and its material connections with violent relations of European borders. Since 2022 he is Guest Faculty in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Bruno Moreschi's academic roots lie in art criticism and the digitization of museum collections, problem contexts that have also led him to his current research on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Moreschi is currently investigating the role of digital images in Large Scale Vision Datasets (LSVD) at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg.