Siegrid Demyttenaere
“I never really feel like I'm working.”
Siegrid Demyttenaere teaches design at KASK & Conservatorium, where she is also responsible for organizing the graduation shows together with other colleagues. She recently received the Henry van de Velde Lifetime Achievement Award. “At first, I thought they had the wrong number when they called me,” she laughs. “Of course, such recognition means something. But if that award suggests it, I'm not thinking about retirement anytime soon.”
Siegrid cannot be pigeonholed: design may be the common thread running through her activities, but she is a jack of all trades. She is not one for sticking with the same thing for a long time: “Staying in one discipline is not in my nature. I need variety. And by doing a variety of things that I enjoy, I never really feel like I'm working.”Daring to reach out
One of her motivations is to help develop and nurture initiatives and give other people a platform. "That's one of the great things about teaching. You see young people grow. You feel that they benefit from your experience, but at the same time, they also nourish and inspire me. I also encourage them to collaborate with people from other disciplines. I think it's important to dare to reach out to others, and that's what I teach my students."
It would be impossible to highlight all of Siegrid's activities outside of teaching here. Her career has been too varied and rich. For example, she runs her own visual communication agency, Waterproof, with national and international clients in various areas of the creative sector. As a freelancer, she has also been associated with the Design Museum in Ghent for ten years, which was recently expanded with a new wing. As a curator, Siegrid seeks out suitable designers to integrate design projects into the museum's architecture.
Magazine
She has also come a long way as an editor and art director: in 2004, she co-founded DAMN° magazine, an international magazine focused on design. Her passion for publishing and editing was sparked when she worked for the newspaper De Morgen for a while. “At the time, there was no magazine that brought together different forms of design and dared to look beyond the established values. We responded to that.”
A remarkable anecdote is that when the magazine was launched more than twenty years ago, Siegrid and a few editorial staff members traveled to Milan in a mobile home. There they parked at Bar Basso, a café known as a meeting place for designers and artists. "They really appreciated our initiative. It was definitely an extra incentive to continue, because at that point we didn't have a clear business plan at all. It was a bit rock ‘n’ roll."