The Happy Dutch

Happiness is important. Happy people are better employees and better citizens; they are more active, more creative, less susceptible to disease, have more energy and participate more than less fortunate people. Happiness is important in the social and economic field. It is no coincidence that the UN proclaimed 'International Day of Good Fortune' on 20 March. The City of Tilburg promotes "the week of Happiness" from 19 till 23 March, the week Exchange-students of Trento are visiting our Academy; Art Communication and Design in Tilburg. Fontys Art communication and Design decided to participate in this sympathetic action by designing actions, tools and situations that focus on creating happiness for the people in the streets of Tilburg, giving our Italian Guests the opportunity to meet Tilburg Inhabitants and get into a dialog. With the interaction through cultural probes and the documented results of our Italian visitors we focus on designsuggestions and proposals that stimulate the Dutch and Italian happiness.

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17 volgers, 5 volgend, 18 berichten - Bekijk Instagram-foto's en -video's van Lagoon Studio (@lagoonstudio3d)

Sabine Kops

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Day 1 —write on me

Today was the first day of the happiness week, we walked around the city asking to people to write something related to happiness so that others could see their message.

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Our project was perhaps too ambitious, although constructive. We had the bad luck of a windy day that made it difficult to carry out the project: tomorrow it will be better! Si va! 

- Station 5 

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The bubble activity was fun, people approched more with us becouse simple and funny, and everybody who did it enjoied it and smiled after they blew the bubbles. Exspecially when an old lady blew the bubbles and after she said that she needed it to smile.

Station 2

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In the first day we had the chance to actually understand what cultural probes are. We spent the afternoon talking with Dutch people in order to cheer them up. -Station 5

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Cute people in Tilburg.

Windy days, stolen smiles and a box full of happiness that didn’t work.

See you tomorrow.

Vittoria

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First day in Tilburg! The Happiness week is coming!

By station 3

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Day 1

Monday was our first day at the Fontys academy.

Alysa laid out her graduation project and asked us to make some social experiments in Tilburg city centre. Ours consisted in wearing a blackboard and asking pedestrians to write on it to share positive mood with other people. It was a very exciting experience; we had a lot of fun, especially Mario, who wore the blackboard. 

Station 6

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Let’s get our hands dirty like when we were child, let’s find that kind of happiness

Angelica

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- Simone -

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Today I was surprised by this man! He stopped us to ask some information about our project; he was so friendly and smiling. 

Then after the photo he told us one of the best moments in his life and explained it with a lot of simplicity: “When i see cute women with a smile on their face (Dutch are so friendly)”.

—Martina

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I thought this guys were awesome, they came all the way from Somalia and they were really happy about the new life they got when they came here.

Even though they went trough a lot of stuff to get where they are now they shared their story with us and that made my day

— Riccardo