​Markus Langens bachelor project: Dante Alighieri in a pandemic
Norwegian society was shut down on 12 March 2020, and did not fully open until October 2021. This posed an extreme challenge for both teachers and students. For the students who were admitted to the BA program 2018, it meant working from home during half the study period. Fortunately, the core business of an art academy involves overcoming challenges. Markus Langen decided to make a virtue of necessity, when he illustrated The Divine Comedy at home on walls and ceilings. 700 years and 7 days after Dante Alighieri's death on September 21, 2021 Markus let the BA threes into his home while they had a course on picture books.
What was it like to be a Bachelorstudent at KHiO?
The teachers at KHiO were great and inspiring, and everyone in the class was ambitious in their own way. Three years went a little too fast, and you should have a detailed battle plan before you start for how to get everything done that you should do while you're there.
Can you tell us a little about the idea behind your graduation project?
In the bachelor project, I wanted to work with book illustration, and mural seemed like a suitable medium for the project. The scale was larger than anything I had worked on before, and contributed with a drama that suited Dante. I wanted to work a lot, and quickly, throughout the bachelor period, and I shaped the project around the desire for such a process.
What was it like living in the project / Dante's Inferno for so long?
It was quite the challenge, and I wish I had managed to see the project a little more distanced while I was working. I think you get used to visual "noise" pretty quickly. When I finished the project, I was so done with it that I actually stopped looking at it right away, and had to read a summary of Dante when I was going to show it again a few months later. Now I've painted over it, it's nice to live more anonymously again.
Do you have any tips for others who are going to start their Bachelor project?
Go big or go home
