Ben Esseling is one of the 22 participants. Prior to the closing performance, he tried to explain to Cursor how he experienced the creative expedition. “The whole project was very vague. That’s probably the best way to describe it. But all in all I’m very positive; I experienced things I never did before.” Which is the exact point of departure for the journey the group was taken on by Meit. Although to be fair, the group pretty much carved out its own journey, Esseling says. “Gover is a scatterbrain, to put it mildly, and I don’t think he himself knew what he was going to do. For me, that was great to see. I found it appealing that he’s as free as can be.”

That freedom is a huge contrast with the way in which Esseling spent the past few years. After rounding off a double bachelor’s degree (Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics) and sitting on the board of two student teams, his only current commitment is being a member of Studium Generale’s film committee. “As I’m in a bit more of a quiet place at the moment, I wanted to get to know someone who has a totally different take on life. Gover behaves exactly like he does on TV. He yanked us out of our comfort zones and we had a lot of fun learning about art and the duality contained therein.”

Unpredictable

The project is called ‘Creativity beyond Borders’ and consisted of ten sessions. At each of them, it was entirely uncertain what would happen. The group, for instance, visited the Verbeke Foundation near Antwerp, talked to one of the light artists participating in GLOW, sang karaoke and played a trading game.

Evi Kulker, who is enrolled in two master’s programs (Human Technology Interaction & Data Science and AI) and just launched a dancing school, also found that unpredictability appealing. “I like to plan things out, because of my studies and the dancing courses I teach. It’s difficult to be spontaneous under those circumstances. Stefano has an entirely different approach. And what I also wanted to learn from him was to stand in front of a crowd of people and entertain and inspire them.”

Experiment

In the Blauwe Zaal, Meit addresses those gathered with the greatest of ease. “I still can’t believe Studium Generale thought it was a good idea to get me to be their Artist in Residence. The students here are hard workers and take a very pragmatic approach to my questions. If I ask them for an example of a bad experience, they might say ‘waiting’. If I ask them what waiting is, they say ‘a waste of time’. If I ask them what love is, they resort to Google. ‘Love is emotion plus feeling,’ the answer will come back, leaving me in amazement.”