PREMIUM: Meeting with your client for the first time

So far in my Premium experience, I have particularly enjoyed our first, and for now only, team meeting with our client, Marres House of contemporary culture. After having gone through the demanding selection process and the stressful (but enriching) mix and match event, this finally felt like the real beginning of our project. Our goal is to explore our sensory experiences to find a way to express art in an alternative way, other than by simply using our sight.

For this first team meeting, we in fact met at the beautiful building of Marres. We are fortunate enough to have a client with high expectations, pushing us to always dig deeper in our reflections and thoughts, but also extremely open and flexible about the outcome of our project. This leaves us so much freedom to come up with creative ideas that could lead us in so many different directions. It is therefore left upon us to structure the project as we wish while finding a satisfactory result for our client. This first meeting, with all four of the team members, our client and mentor, helped us define some of these goals, and grasp a bit better the concept of our project, while at the same time showing us how unrestricted we are in the paths we could take. All students were willing first to reflect and share on their previous sensory experiences and how they have shaped the way they perceive the world, but also passionate about senses in themselves, what exactly they entail and their link with our emotional memories. Ideas about exhibitions and art shows to attend kept popping up and showed the enthusiasm of the group, which hopefully will be transparent in the outcome of this artistic project. For example we thought about games we could play, blind tests for smelling spices or tasting food, and also writing about our art memories and the feelings associated with them.

Despite being a law student and having no background in art, I felt included and welcome to join almost philosophical, and sometimes scientific, but always fascinating, discussions about the relationship we have with our senses, but also how new technologies have completely transformed our approach to them. I am confident that we will all find a way to contribute, in very different ways, to the creation of an innovative project that will truly trigger new experiences for our audience.

Written by Claire Gilliot (LAW)

PREMIUM Student 2019-2020