Sera van de Water - Portfolio

WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?

Editorial, Digital Tool, Workshops
(Inkjet, HTML/CSS/JS)

[2025]
Graphic design is stuck, caught in capitalism’s chokehold. When researching critical graphic design and whether or not it may offer solutions to – or rather ways to deal with – the discipline’s forced alliance with global capitalism and consumerism, the feeling that arises is best described as a bitterness. Where the 2024 instalment of this research focused on establishing that issue, which at times could be quite overwhelming and discouraging, WAWDH 2025 switches perspectives and instead tries to find openings through this seemingly impenetrable wall. It implements and invites an open, unknowing approach — exercising collectivity and shared authorship, and attempting to go beyond traditional binaries of individual/collective, pessimism/optimism, utopian/dystopian, inside/outside of the system. Rather than proposing perfect solutions, ‘What Are We Doing Here?’ poses (and is in itself an) open-ended question(s): how can we draft alternative futures in the present? Can we find room for critical footnotes? What’s left in the margins?
The publication gathers my personal and collective research throughout the year, including works by myself as well as works made by or together with others during ‘pot-luck bookmaking’ workshops. It plays with traditional book structures, placing what would normally be the “main body text” (my master’s thesis ‘Graphic Design at the Edge of A Capitalist Wall’) in the Appendix and focusing on the messy, non-lineair process of making and researching, rather than the end result.
During the graduation exhibition, the project was presented as ongoing, rather than as a finished end product, negating linear, result-driven design practices and emphasising on process rather than product. The publication [1/3] was exhibited by organising a work space within the exhibition space, where the audience was invited to participate and discuss — through multiple workshops that were hosted during the opening hours of the exhibition as well as through individual interventions with the work. The workspace was accompanied by a self-programmed collaborative design tool, which is still a work in progress (which I hope to be able to share soon).

WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?

Editorial, Posters, Website
(RISO/Inkjet, Silkscreen, HTML/CSS/JS)

[2024]
When researching critical graphic design and whether or not it may offer solutions to—or rather ways to deal with—the discipline’s forced alliance with global capitalism and consumerism, the feeling that arises is best described as a bitterness. The chokehold that capitalism has on graphic design feels for many to be inescapable and disillusioning, hopelessness often prevailing over optimism. By implementing an open and unknowing approach, this project is an attempt at bringing back a certain optimism by focusing on collectivity.

MOON & POLITICS: NAVIGATING A STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIA MYTHS

Editorial, Video Installation
(Inkjet, 2 CRT Screens, Camcorder)

[2024]
When looking at the years leading up to the first Moon landing from a political point of view, it is clear that this seemingly scientific endeavor was actually a political-strategic one. In the context of the Cold War the Moon landing goal became entangled in a later so-called Space Race as a way to beat the Soviets. This political motive isn’t apparent in the way that the road towards the Moon landing was portrayed, however. Public affairs offices worked to cultivate a bold, brave, frontier style narrative to popularize space flights, never missing a chance to exploit public enthusiasm. This installation questions the manipulative force of such meticulously formed public imagery. Media often paints a distorted picture of reality, which is then interpreted as an actual representation of it. That discrepancy is symbolized here by placing a camera in between two screens, one oriented East, one West. It makes you wonder about the subjective point of view that media innately contains. Do we really know why the Moon landing happened when it did?

VIMEO

YOU DON'T HATE DESIGN,
YOU HATE CAPITALISM

Multimedia Collages, Publication
(RISO, Embossed)

[2024]
The process of making collages served as an outlet for the inescapable feeling of stress (anxiety? existential dread? who knows) that came with researching a topic as heavy as design vs/+ capitalism (and also graduating). Although a more abstract and less literal translation, they still represent that same struggle; just in a more personal and emotional (not-so-much theoretical) way.