About Twijfel

Masterclass the Civic Economy

From the 17th to the 21st of november 2014 a masterclass took place at The Eiland van Brienenoord. The project took place in collaboration with Maurice Specht.
Part of the Masterclass were the Doubters inc.[1] They kept themselves busy with the value of doubt: twijfel.

Doubters inc.

Doubters inc. is gevormd tijdens de masterclass The Civic Economy en kwam samen op het eiland van Brienenoord.

I doubt about....

"At the moment I’m doubting about my graduation internship. My interest goes out to acoustics, but they also go out to architecture and sustainability. A combination of these would be awesome, but I haven’t found an internship that contains these three interests. And if I won’t, then in which one will I be able to excel the most? With what interest fits what partner and supervisor? Will this result in a new experience? Or will it be the same path I’ve already went down for a thousand times? I just don’t know yet."

I doubt about....

"The doubt of wether you make intuitive or rational decisions. Society teaches us to make rational ones, some of these are even expected of us. Because of this we get more disconnected from our feelings, which is bad because for me most of our best choices come from the heart. I doubt about wether I should listen to my heart, my first thought, my feeling or my intuition. Or should I make rational choices with the knowledge I have. For me this is a choice between certainty or happiness."

I doubt about....

"In the past I was doubting about everything, which made me very vulnerable, insecure and frustrated; This made me indecisive, which I was very aware of as a child. This made me sad. Within my teenage years things were a little less hard, because I new a little more about what I wanted in life. I couldn’t explain it though, but at least I was making decisions following my intuition. Since I got to know myself better, a lot of my daily life doubts slowly disappeared.

The only thing is that the doubts that remain are a lot deeper: doubts about the status-quo, mass corporations, economy, politics, the nutrition industry, the medication industry, banks, housing associations, and so forth.

These organizations are too big for me to understand and therefore I don’t trust them. I doubt if they can continue this big or that we should continue on a more human scale. That there should arise new collectives built on trust, love and sharing; So we can continue with less doubt about things that are too big to understand, so there is more room for our small daily doubts."

I doubt about....

"When I’m done studying, I’ll be traveling the world. There are so many places I wish to see and so many adventures I want to have. Should I go alone? Or do I have to find a traveling mate? I don’t know if I'm that good at being alone.

I would love to do some voluntarily-work in order to help people in need, but after reading the news I doubt if these people will benefit from it."

I doubt about....

"Doubt is a lack of trust! Trust is something you can build, therefore lack of trust can be overwon. Trust in yourself! Trust in someone else! Trust in love! What i would love to have is 100% trust in everything. That I never have to doubt again. But therefore I trust to doubt."

I doubt about....

"The biggest doubt I have at the moment is a very important one for my future. It’s a doubt between choices... What to do after school? Do you want to choose for your passion, the unknown, where you enter the intangible? Or do you want to choose for more security, the more concrete future, but at the same time fewer opportunities. It’s a doubt between choices where you think to know the future and where you certainly don’t know the future. You have the easy money, but not that fun, or you have to work harder, take more risks and wait longer for the same result (in this case money). The thing is that nothing is wrong, there are more answers and there surely will always be more questions to doubt about."

I doubt about....

"For me, my designership through the years has been and will always be full of doubt. It’s all about making decisions and if you would know everything, then there would be nothing new to learn. So when I’m working on a project and I have doubt, it simply means there’s things I don’t know yet. A moment wich is very exciting to me; I’m going to learn something new. This can be knowledge, skill or often I need new visual input that is inspiring. Most of the time I solve this myself by doing research, but sometimes it helps speaking to someone that you trust and who I think is capable of making my doubt disappear; In the past teachers, fellow student/designers and supervisors have been the ones for me.

I never felt that there wasn’t any room for my doubts. The academy and my internship have always very supportive in that aspect. Therefore I do not associate doubt with a negative feeling and that’s why for me it’s not an issue. Maybe there’s no room for doubt in the place I’m living in the future, a place beyond the academy. A time where I might need the island of doubt."