EXTERNAL AWARDS

     Prizes Academic Bachelors

Bruynseraede Prize - De Witte
Presentation by Kristof Patry (Contact: Jean Dujardin)
Mobina Mohammadi Tabar (autonomous design)
Cathinka Martens (graphic design)

Playright+
Contact: Sébastien Bours
Presentation: Board member Darya Gantura (darya@deacteursgilde.be)
Roberta Zonca (pop singing)
Roberta Zonca did a wonderful master 2 concert. She takes risks in melody, harmony and technique, but knows how to combine these 3 elements flawlessly. Her musical sense and finesse, with in-depth lyrics in her native language, resulted in an impressive concert where emotion was never far away.
Jef Hellemans (drama)

Cachet Prize
Announcement Hilde D'haeyere
Prize: material for set dressing worth 1,000 euros plus advice and assistance with the art direction of the graduation film.
Winner: Mika Baudoux

Roger De Conynck Fund
Both photography students
Prize: 500 euro each and a chance of a scholarship from the fund.
The Roger De Conynck Fund was set up in 2012 by the King Baudouin Foundation. Its aim is to train young photographers to help them build up their professional careers. Roger De Conynck was a philanthropist with a special predilection for photography and the creative eye of professional photographers.
The jury consisted of Tine Guns, Evelyn Simons, Erik Kessels and Jim Campers.

Natacha de Mahieu: The jury praised Natacha's carefully crafted project, which gives it a disturbing capacity to challenge the viewer. In relation to the acute contemporary problem of the circulation of images and mass tourism, the jury also underlined the effectiveness of the project and its critical potential, which remains open to many promising developments.

Lukas Van Bentum: The jury underlined the extent of the research carried out by Lukas Van Bentum before and during the implementation of the project. This project is a continuation of his previous projects and deepens his study, with new formal perspectives, of the former Eastern Bloc countries, which he began several years ago. The jury also praises the remarkable photographic quality of the project.

Horlait-Dapsens Prize
Jury: Filip Rathé (Chairman), Hanneke Dewyn, Klaus De Langhe, Valentijn Goethals, Sofie Joye, Isaline Raes, Nina De Vroome, Régis Dragonetti (Secretary)
4 top prizes (€ 2250)

Jonas Baeke and Jef Hellemans (drama)
The performance Pinokkio stands like a house. Baeke and Hellemans take Carlo Collodi's well-known story and wring out a sizzling phantasmagoria of growth and coming of age. At the centre is the doll-man, thrown into a labyrinthine world full of standards, temptations and technological distractions. He plays and is played with. Sound, acting and language (machine-translated Italian, no less) are intelligently interwoven to form a whole that evolves organically from the playful to the tragic. In terms of staging and costumes, the makers maintain a fine balance between DIY and austerity, if only because Geppetto's moustache is made of tape. In short, the jury enjoyed it.

Kamiej De Prez (instrument making)
Kamiej De Prez's master's thesis involves a reconstruction of a so-called clavecin roïal from 1783 by Johann Gottlob Wagner. Starting from a thorough organological research, she brings a copy from the Instrumentenmuseum back to playable life with an eye for the most minute detail: the brushes of the string damping, the camel bone cover of the keys, the wooden case with 3D ornaments, or what to think of the four knee pedals that change the sound as if by magic into that of a harp or piano. The jury agrees, this is indeed a master test, one that has been passed with flying colours.

Joshua Serafin (fine arts)
Serafin Joshua presents his project Cosmological Gangbang. Behind the multi-medial manifestations of the project lies an interesting what if story. What if the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines had not imposed a binary conception of gender onto a culture that dealt in gender with much greater diversity. An imaginary pantheon rises under Serafin’s hands: a videowork in which we witness the dance or perhaps birth of a God, a number of hieratic and strangely reflective images and a photoseries in progress. The jury sees a lot of potential still in the further development of this project and congratulates the maker and his collaborators.

Mobina Mohammadi Tabar (autonomous design)
The soaphands made by Mobina Tabar are an absolute charm. Using a wide range of biological ingredients these soapy objects literally reach out to friends in other places of the world. It is a creative effort that overcomes distance by a form of mobile intimacy. The presentation is highly professional and adds context to the spiritual themes of evil, cleansing and salvation, yet in doing so Tabar manages to go beyond the purely etnographic and instead offers a new ritual of healing that stole the jury’s hearts.

     Awards Professional bachelors

BLIKVELD vzw
Laureate: Hans Druart
Laureate: Sara Geets (landscape and garden architecture)
Prize: A book voucher at Copyright (125 euros)

Prize Bruynseraede - De Witte
Award winner: Johan Bosschem (contact also Jean Dujardin)
Lieze Vanlerberghe (interior design)

          INTERNAL PRIZES

Legacies KASK (academic masters)

Jury: Filip Rathé (Chairman), Hanneke Dewyn, Klaus De Langhe, Valentijn Goethals, Sofie Joye, Isaline Raes, Nina De Vroome, Régis Dragonetti (Secretary)

Legate De Leu 1 (€ 400) Anna Van der Ploeg (fine arts)
Anna Van der Ploeg's curved wooden sculptures are indeed remarkable objects. The models, so to speak, are those homemade posters that everyone knows and that people hang up at supermarkets when cats or loved ones are missing. Under Van der Ploeg's hands, these artefacts from everyday life take on a monumental form. The objects are not simply stripped from their original context or aestheticised for museum purposes, but retain a touching referentiality. Language or people reaching out crystallises into a less legible but picturesque typography, which is both tragic and beautiful.

Legate De Leu 2 (€ 400) Sebastian Van Canneyt (fashion)
In the project Endegem, fashion designer Sebastian Van Canneyt dreams up an archetypal Flemish landscape. From a fascination for workwear, he develops a collection that combines a high degree of technical know-how with a presentation that at first glance seems endearingly tomboyish, but on a higher plane resonates with the grotesque tradition of giants, puppetry and carnivalesque processions. The surrounding paintings are a nod to the New Vision by Raveel and co., and the accompanying book of poetry has a similar two-and-a-half-dimensional character. The jury appreciates that the clothes remain wearable despite the conceptual approach. They seem to transform the body into a machine-like state but at the same time show a deep love for the tailor's craft.
We have just learned via Instagram that Sebastian also wins the Flanders DC Award.

Legate De Leu 3 (€400) Lukas Neven (photography)
Lukas Neven's masterpiece presents itself as a daring quest for purity. Using a multitude of techniques such as inversions, negatives and scans, he reduces the photographic medium to its essence. The presentation is taut and extremely well thought-out, but nevertheless makes an immediate appeal to the senses. The jury is convinced that Neven's story is far from over and looks forward to future exploits.

Composite bequest 1 from Audoor, De Guis-Stockman, Preys, Borst, Pycke and others (€ 400) Fae Felis
With Ways to Cope, Fae Felis made an exceptionally courageous performance cum ego document, which balances on the thin border between reality and art. In a quasi-undressed space, we are told the story of a - to put it mildly - hardened Otherness, in which the father relationship in particular is scrutinised. The performance is neat and accurate. The minimal set changes, in which two chairs are given different positions in the space each time, are enough to give the whole a certain dramaturgical relief. The jury is all the more pleased if it would indeed turn out to be a way to cope.

Composite bequest 2 from Audoor, De Guis-Stockman, Preys, Borst, Pycke and others (€ 400) Mika Baudoux (film)
In her master's film, Mika Baudoux tells a personal story that went straight to the jury's heart. The sometimes claustrophobic-looking scenes of young people in a city flat are haunted by an unspeakable trauma. It became a poetic mixture of archive images, scenes and sometimes something like moving sculptures. The jury pays tribute to Baudoux's personal and idiosyncratic handling of her actors. The driving soundtrack was also highly appreciated.

Legacies Conservatoire

Remouchamps 1 (€ 300) Suzan Peeters (classical)
Suzan Peeters possesses exceptional creativity. As an accordionist and musician in general, she has a voice all her own that the jury loved to hear. Her fascinating stage presence and great authenticity blew over the stage like a fresh wind.

Remouchamps 2 (€ 150): Martina Garau (jazz vocals)
Martina is a gifted musician with great sensitivity and dedication to study and research. Her practice consists of analyzing different aspects of vocal approach and deepening vocal improvisation, in the context of quite complex music, both harmonically and rhythmically.  This ultimately resulted in a fascinating and artistically high-quality concert. Martina's music can be placed stylistically in the world of Songwriting and Contemporary Jazz and reveals an excellent quality in composition and creativity that she manages to bring with extreme naturalness.

Remouchamps 3 (€ 150): Martijn De Bondt (music production)
Martijn shows himself in his master's thesis as a strong sound designer. He makes his mark on productions with an original and sonically convincing sound image that contains a lot of finesse within the rough character that the music radiates. His own songs have a good sense of humour, which contrasts nicely with the sonic impact of his sound design.

Legacies KASK (professional bachelors)

Legate De Leu 4 (€ 400) Jerome Serreyn (Landscape and garden architecture)
After an initial hesitant start in the bachelor's thesis, Jerome has taken up strengthening the identity of Campus Mercator van Hogent as the central ambition of his plan. The history of the textile industry on the site became a search for the figurative and almost literal red thread through the campus. This resulted in a warm and inviting plan that is very consistently put together. The concepts were translated qualitatively and are permanently recognisable. The plans are further drawn up with a very strong visual language. As icing on the cake, the design is also practical.

Desmet bequest (€ 400) Karen Gryspeert (interior design, focus on concept and spatiality)
In her bachelor's thesis Karen Gryspeert researches the redevelopment of religious buildings, in this case a church. Starting from an example of her own living environment, Karen has thoroughly researched the spatial characteristics of this historic building and from conversations with residents, and put together a programme. A community building in which a library can be transformed into a theatre or concert space, linked to an exhibition space. A foyer supports these activities and is connected to the beautiful garden around the church with a few intelligent, precise openings in the façade. The result is a stunning example of how contemporary needs and interventions can be combined with these special but difficult to transform buildings. Overall, the design shows a mature vision of the task, with great attention to the various levels of detail. A masterpiece!

Photo: Cathinka Martens receives the René Bruynsraede prize for graphic design, © Jordi Coppers