The idea was to have a number of interesting lectures by artists as part of teambuilding day for the BBIE, a club of people who primarily specialise in trademark law and intellectual property, but instead, they insisted on making a fake Eek. I could just picture it: a group of intelligent individuals, a few of whom are good with their hands. They all start hammering away at creating pieces, irritated at the clumsiness of their colleagues. Sweaty and, depending on the result, triumphant, the two groups then raise a glass. The handy and the not-so-handy are forever labelled.
In other words, I thought it was a bad idea. Until I realised that, if Terts Brinkhoff, one of the creative directors of the Parade, could turn it into a theatre show that would accompany everything and push the end results into the background, it might turn out all right. As I understand it, it was a memorable afternoon that everyone looks back on with a smile.
Social work
I was approached recently by two groups dedicated to helping people with a disability or underprivileged children. They were both interested in a possible collaboration. The first organisation, Amarant, discovered during the Huttenfestival in Tilburg that they could easily make the metal tie-down strap chunky beam benches. More were needed than we had made, so they made a whole series of extra ones. The second organisation, Jeugdcultuurfonds Eindhoven, is discussing a sort of cultural programme in which voluntary teachers help put pupils to work. We are extremely busy at this time and struggling to meet all of our obligations, so I was hesitant to offer our assistance.
Idea Parade (23-26 August 2012)
Terts found the BBIE session to be so successful that he now wants to do this at our location in Eindhoven as an act during the Parade. The hammer-together-your-own-Eek-theatre-show on the platform, or something like that. At any rate, he can picture it already. And 1+1+1 = 3. I can simply abandon my reservations, since we’re definitely going to do the carpentry session, but then with the people from Tilburg and Eindhoven. This will guarantee participants at least. But, more importantly, the idea is for it to be more than just ‘busyness’ therapy, but hopefully a structural way to raise funds, since the products I came up with for the BBIE can be plagiarised, but for a charitable cause. So, before long, genuine but cheap Eeks will be for sale in Tilburg and Eindhoven. Incidentally, I’ve got a couple of other designs that would be perfect for charitable plagiarism…
This post is also available in: NL
« Back to blog