The School within The School

An umbrella

You are sure that The School within The School exists, you’ve seen it, although its form is somewhat nebulous. Some days it seems to be the only school you have ever been a part of and others you doubt that it was ever there.

Its presence is dependant on us and as such it offers a different functioning of the school that it calls home, The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

You found it when listening to a discussion on the radio; that time you sat at a tap dispensing beer when you most needed a chat or when you heard someone atop a small set of steps expressing their joys and woes.

Mushroom Radio

A sometimes pirate radio

It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week and you are in your studio again. The day started like every other. The same corridor, the same stop at the canteen. The posters that you glance have become wallpaper to you, what’s even happening beyond your desk and four walls?

You open your laptop and there is a blank screen and you hear a tiny voice, not louder than a whisper. You look around and there are two people sat next to you quietly discussing something. You turn up the volume on your computer so you can get a better listen.

You don’t recognise them and sure enough they are from another department but you listen on, it’s not a topic you had thought about before but it’s intriguing nonetheless. They leave and in walks someone you recognise but with an instrument you don’t.

They sit down and start playing you a song, it’s beautiful when they disappear you get up from your desk to go and find them.

Mushroom Radio is a student run radio station created in an effort to amplify the current extra-curricular activities from students of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Mushroom radio has it's own site here and is currently looking for new students to run it and for funding to purchase the equipment permenantly for use by the students.

The Tap

A bar

It’s already evening and you’ve been working hard towards an ever looming deadline. All you want to do is get a cheap drink, sit and chat about nothing in particular. You step through the door of the school,but as you make your way through the maze of corridors you become disorientated.

This isn’t how you remember it, where are all the staff? You look at the clock on the wall, it’s already 11pm...You were sure the school should have closed an hour ago. You notice a lone bartender at a tap dressed in a strange attire. They ring a bell and you pull up a pew. They pour you a drink and you hand them a coin or two.

Before you know it, it’s the early hours of the morning and you are drinking and chatting with five strangers, that by now seem like old friends. You stagger home and tucked up in bed, you decide that next week you will be the bartender sat in the strange attire at The Tap.

The Steps to...

A performance platform

You’re late... at least you think you are. You check your watch but the hands are spinning uncontrollably. You didn’t sleep well the night before because so many thoughts had been cascading through your mind. You wish you had transcribed some of those dreams you had, you were sure they were interesting.

You look up from your wrist and the corridor seems to extend before your eyes. At the end is a wall that you had never seen before and up against it what appears to be a small set of steps leading to nowhere.

You walk to the top and turn around. There is a group of people waiting for you to start. You steady your breathing, reach into your pocket and pick out a small scrumpled up piece of paper. You can only just make out the scribbles of what must have been a midnight memo to your future self. You begin to read aloud and don’t quite recognise your own voice. The audience listen.

The Entrance

A new threshold

It’s Sunday morning and you are taking a stroll through the city. You walk your usual route past the school and towards the café across the street that will later host you for an evening event, when you notice a glowing light.

It is coming from an alleyway that you had not noticed before. Tucked between two shops is a doorway that is open just a crack. You pull open the door with a creek and begin to make your way over the threshold. It was strange, at no point did you feel like you did not belong here, that you were not meant to be treading this path. There was trepidation in your step but only that caused by wonder.

As you move through the space with each step you begin to feel empowered and you realise you have known this place all along, this is your school.

You look around and begin to notice the people around you the books on the shelves and that the event you were attending that evening in the café was happening right here and now. You settle in to a chair and start flicking through a programme of the evening, the week, the month, the year a wonder where you fit into all this. As you do a member of the Public passes by and you start discussing what’s on and when they can visit again, “whenever you want” you reply.