After stepping into illusion with our visit to the Museum of Illusions (in the last post), the question that lingered was simple: what happens next?
Seeing, after all, is only the beginning.
In the weeks that followed, my foundation students were invited to take what they had encountered – the fragments of distortion, warped perspectives, mirrored realities, and begin the process of translation. Not as a replication, but interpretation in their own metaphorical mening. Not copying what was seen, but understanding how it was seen, and more importantly, why it felt the way it did.
What emerged was far from uniform.
Some students leaned into the mechanics of illusion as their source of inspiration. They explored mirrors, perspective tricks, and spatial distortions — attempting to reconstruct environments that confused the eye and disrupted logic. Their works were grounded in observation, almost analytical in nature, as if decoding the visual language behind illusion itself.
Others, however, took a different route.
Instead of stubbornly attempting to use
surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is
necessary to try to make of surrealism
something as solid, complete and classic
as the works of museums– Salvador Dali
They stepped into the surreal. Illusion became metaphor. Spaces began to reflect internal states — emotions, tensions, fragments of thought. These were not just rooms or environments, but interpretations of feeling, translated into form. Quietly expressive, sometimes ambiguous, yet deeply personal.
This divergence was perhaps the most telling outcome. Because design, at its core, is never just about what is seen — but how it is understood.
The first stage of translation began digitally. Students constructed their ideas in isometric space using Photoshop — flattening perspective, organising structure, and making sense of spatial relationships.
What illusion once disrupted, they now had to rationalise. It was a shift from instinct to intention.
From there, the work moved off the screen.
Each student developed a 20 × 20 × 20 cm spatial piece, built entirely from scratch. Materials were not prescribed — and that freedom led to some of the most inventive outcomes. Soft and hard air-dry clay formed the base of many structures. Some experimented further — using nail polish to create pearl-like finishes, or transforming simple tart foil cups into clamshell elements. Everyday materials were reimagined, not for what they were, but for what they could become.
What began as observation slowly took shape as experience. And then, for a change, the work did not end at submission. Instead, it moved outward.
The final presentations were staged just outside the ICAD office, within a small exhibition space that the students were given full responsibility to occupy. Pedestals were arranged. Boards were set up to showcase process work alongside final pieces. The space, modest as it was, transformed into a curated environment — one that invited viewers to walk, pause, and observe.
Students were no longer just presenting.
They were exhibiting.
Placed side by side, the works began to speak to one another. Optical explorations sat alongside surreal interpretations. Structured illusions contrasted with expressive spaces. What might have been individual assignments became a collective conversation — a quiet dialogue on perception, interpretation, and form.
In many ways, this final stage mattered most.
Because learning does not end with making. It extends into how work is positioned, experienced, and shared. To see one’s work on a pedestal, outside the classroom, is to understand that design exists beyond assessment. It exists in space. It exists in dialogue.
And perhaps that is the true continuation of learning to see.
Not just through the eyes, but through making, reflecting, and placing one’s work into the world.
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