The Perfect Human × 5, title of a nearly diabolical assignment that all first year students of Rietveld Graphic Design have been subjected to and part of the educational method of professor Henk Groenendijk. The posters and documentation material on display in this exposition give insight to a design process that sends students through a reflexive purgatory, with unexpected explorative results.

Groenendijk based this assignment on the documentary The Five Obstructions by Lars von Trier (2003). In this documentary Jørgen Leth, a Danish director and friend, has to shoot 5 remakes of his famous short movie The Perfect Human (1967). Each time under a set of new obstructions by Lars. For the Rietveld assignment, students are similarly partnered and challenged by their peers in a set of five steps of creation.

The reflective method places students into a subjective and objective position towards their personal creative process, and also towards the process of the other. It moves through all layers of the creational process, peeling them off, and then building them back up again.

This event is a part of the OFF Program – open space devoted to workshops, interventions, and other presentations and activities related to graphic design. The authors are solely responsible for the nature of this event. The program is subject to change.