From visually anything, to virtually anything.

In Rotterdam, a small team of fine arts and photography students from all over the world who got to know each other at the Willem de Kooning Academy, gathered every Monday from February onwards. These meetings were a new way to get to know each other better since part of the group were Erasmus students and another part regular WdKA students.

The “Monday group” is about creating a moment were people came together to talk about future projects and exchange ideas, resulting into an open dialogue about almost anything: art, politics, racism, personal feelings, life itself, problems, environment and history were just some of the things that we discussed, accompanied with food, making every conversation last a little bit longer.

Thursday 13th of March 2020
We all know the story, everything stopped moving, like after a long earthquake. Suddenly, we were in different locations, really far from each other, but everybody behind the screens trying to adapt, again.

The Monday meetings become Monday calls, with even more regular students from WDKA joining, giving a whole different meaning to the word engagement. Fully going online, we decided to make a virtual free-themed exhibition just to re-create the moment of sharing our vision with each other and, in the end, showing it to the rest of the world.

Creating a bridge as our presentation environment is a symbolic way to coexist all together while trying to change the traditional view of what an exhibition space can be. While exploring the space you can observe a lot of elements drawn from reality and nature such as the soil, the water, the rocks, the plants, the building, and the bridge itself among others.




And at the same time, the science fiction part of it: exhibiting underneath the bridge, the road with no cars trying to keep out of the way, and the building with no one inside are scenes that become our new world. The flyover above the settlement is placed as a constant reminder that there is so much trauma going on around us and to emphasize how trapped we have all been feeling. However, this is contrasted by the hopeful new community growing underneath it.

We decided to bring into virtual existence a scene that is a combination between a quarantine utopia and Erasmus bridge, one of Rotterdam’s best-known landmarks, as symbols of how we all met and what we share.

Olga Souvermezoglou


The Monday meetings were organized by Juan Beladrich in the context of Group Critique