EYE CONTACT

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30 portraits on easels, featuring people (and photographers) from all over the world. Accessible yet powerful working methods for different age groups. Together, they can make a strong contribution to greater connectedness, the development of empathy and respect, and thus to strengthening a positive learning climate.

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The Academy of Understanding (BegripsAcademie) has existed for 15 years. With that, we also celebrate 15 years of working on our mission: promoting mutual understanding and appreciation of differences. In our practice, we experience time and again how seemingly simple and everyday actions—such as making eye contact—can be powerful and disarming instruments in this process.

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Through eye contact, we learn to read without words and to understand without explanation. We see something of the other, but also of ourselves. We experience a sense of connection that may be hard to put into words, yet is undeniably there—like a bridge made of points of contact, where you meet each other somewhere halfway.

For children in special secondary education (VSO), we offer exercises that are safe, predictable, and not sensory-overstimulating, yet do invite reflection, connection, and meaningful contact.

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In the exhibition, you not only make eye contact with the portraits, but also with one another. The working methods that are offered help participants to look in new ways and, as a result, to make surprising discoveries. And when it works, it really works: almost unnoticed, something changes in the space, the group, the class.

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Any secondary or higher education institution can host EYE CONTACT for one week. The costs are minimal: €350 for transport, installation, and dismantling (in the Netherlands, ask for prices outside the Netherlands).

 

Would you like to know more?

​Call or email Miriam Zwaan.

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