Second-year students starting with three assigned objects and a macro-theme, develop their technique and approach to image-making in preparation for their future professional practice.

A dry cookie, a makeup remover sponge and a straw are interpreted through the analogical use of Rudolf Arnheim’s visual-rhetorical thinking. The process of working out these unusual point, line, surface (Kandinsky, 1926) leads to critical reflection on the relationship between nature and human construction while trying to respond to today’s social, energy and environmental challenges.

The resulting metaphors are true statements of intent that motivate their forms through principles such as climate transition, densification, ecology, and energy transition. “What can I do with that?” is having faith in research and incidental knowledge.