Talent
What is talent? When is someone considered a talent? Which values and qualities do we attribute to the concept?
The Common Inn, graphic design Gilles de Brock, 2019.
Graphic Design Platform, Het Nieuwe Instituut
Blood Related. Basse Stittgen. New Material Award 2018. Photo: Gert-Jan van Rooij.
Power Plant. Marjan van Aubel. Photo Emma Elston, 2018
The current era, in which we face a plethora of urgent, social, economic and ecological issues, demands a different approach to talent, other qualities and forms of cooperation. Het Nieuwe Instituut intends to explore the concept of talent and discuss it with designers, makers, curators, policymakers, the education sector and other stakeholders. These discussions take place at COMMON INN on 18 April 2019, in a series of Thursday Night Live meetings, as well as in interviews published in this online magazine.
Which new directions is education experimenting with? What does a designer or maker need in order to start building a career? How do we define success? How do we ensure that talent development is inclusive and how do we remember to keep in mind the blind spots and negative effects? Should we not forget the concept of talent altogether?
A New Definition of Talent
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Graphic Design Platform, Het Nieuwe Instituut
'How can we ensure that we value talented people, while at the same time remain open to skills whose existence we do not yet know?'
Blind Spots
Rosa te Velde
The Entrance Gap. A Study Of Admissions Procedures At The Willem De Kooning Academy. Screenshot.
'What kind of vocabulary or network and what social codes are acceptable in this competition? And what unwritten rules and blind spots are intrinsic to the assessment?'
A chain of support measures for talent development
Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie
Talent Platform, Creative Industries Fund NL, screenshot website
'Talent development for us as an Creative Industries Fund means that we think very carefully about how we design a range of tools with which we can serve designers and makers in various ways during their careers'.
Passion, Love and Empathy
Pascale Gatzen
‘With Light’ project. Photo Pascale Gatzen.
'The only criterion that truly matters is the willingness of the participant to surrender to their own learning process, to shape it themselves and to develop autonomously.'
An Abundance of Talent
Arna Mačkić and Afaina de Jong
Het Nieuwe Instituut. Archive Explorations: Feminisms in Architecture. Afaina de Jong. Photo Josca Dullaart
'More diversity among teachers will lead to more diversity among the students, because for them the threshold will be lower. A diversity that creates a wealth of different experiences, interests, stories and new (visual) languages.'