benji sheppard /// @banjofromnowhere
Benji Sheppard, Design Academy Eindhoven 2026 graduate, multimedia designer and storyteller from St. Augustine, Florida, creates work influenced by experiences in the conservative South, religious deconstruction, and class division. He communicates complex experiences through various mediums, from steel to sound, adapting the approach to each project's unique demands.
...But Give me my Degree Please! was a series of interviews collected in protest to racist, classist, and otherwise negligent practices and policies enacted and enforced within Design Academy Eindhoven. The posters and written article spurred discourse and leveraged tensions between administration and student body to shed light on an ongoing abuse of power and mishandling of student affairs by unqualified leadership and uninvested administrators.
The posters and interview series sparked serious backlash from administration, resulting in hours of debate and incurred an academic strike on my record. Administration claimed that my work on this project threatened the safety of employees and students. I was unable to find any precedent in the student charter detailing any policy on academic strikes, however I put up new, more lighthearted (if passive-agressive) posters in response, spurring a second wave of students reaching out to share their experiences.