I went to see the graduates exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, this year, and I was expecting to be done with it in the first five minutes. It’s all too often that on such occasions I end up being unimpressed by the young artists’ creative restlessness. But not this year. This year I spent a long time looking at each project, and Lynn van Asperen‘s I’m Here to Improve Myself is one of the ones I really fell for.

I loved it because it taps into this generalized nowadays feeling that one is not enough. There’s always a need, a demand and a vicious search for improving. And many live life in a constant state of nonacceptance of who they are. There’s always a way to improve and develop and searching for means to do so becomes somehow a purpose in itself, like running on a hamster wheel and building a person that’s a projection of what we imagine we should be. A a projection of someone that doesn’t exist and never will.

I simply love the way Lynn van Asperen conceptualized this in her beautiful project, I love the contrast between the clinical images of expressionless people, trying to fit and to improve. And then the poetical and organic images of just being, imperfect and free.

All images © Lynn van Asperen