FILMS
The Netherlands | 5 minutes
Video Essay | HD Video
VIDEO ESSAYS
SYNOPSYS
Underneath This Kite explores a toilet at Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam) through anonymous messages on the walls—art, love confessions, mockery, cries, etc.—forming a collective portrait of the students. This fascinating space turns unsettling when hidden swastikas appear, raising questions about anonymity, coexistence, and what such symbols reveal about the institution I am part of.
STATEMENT
In the search for developing an artistic voice I started questioning how I could make use of the moving images to question and study my quotidian. Tiered of technical experimentation and interested with finding narratives within my daily life that could express my ways of reasoning with the world, I took John Smith’s proposed form in the Hotel Diaries (2001 - 07) to function as a formal template where I could explore my ideas.
The first work that emerged from this process was Underneath This Kite, a short film exploring one of the toilets at Willem de Kooning Academy. Art, poetry, love confessions, sexual provocations, criticism, mockery, and cries for help are among the many categories of anonymous messages found inside and around the toilet booths. Together, these marks construct a collective portrait of the students of the academy — a glimpse into the ideas and atmosphere that circulate through its halls and rooms.
My initial fascination with this space, however, turned into concern as I began noticing hidden swastikas among the drawings. As a student at the academy, the idea that one or more students were spreading Nazi symbolism felt repulsive. Trying to identify “who the Nazi among us was” quickly proved pointless, and what remained was a more unsettling question: if these toilet messages reflect the students, what does the presence of a swastika say about the person sitting next to me — or about the institution we collectively inhabit?
