Talking Wool – Wool in Exchange

Local, natural fibres, are some of our most sustainable raw materials. Yet since the discovery of fossil fuels and the invention of plastics, fibres like wool have lost value and importance. Nowadays just 1% of new textiles for fashion are made from wool, however, this is still one of the few natural fibres we can grow in Northern Europe. As part of the new ›Activating Circular Networks‹ event series, the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« will host »Talking Wool« on June 1st, 2023, from 3 to 7 pm, at the Uferhallen in Wedding - an event that brings designers, academics, politicians, and farmers together to discuss the issues surrounding European and local German wool, the problem of wool waste in particular, and fibre security.

The workshop takes place within the ongoing group exhibition Zur Nachahmung empfohlen - Erkundungen in Ästhetik und Nachhaltigkeit. Our host for the event is professor and artist Folke Köbberling, an expert in exploring these challenges and potentials of coarse wool for years. During a five-days-workshop she makes a model house to test ways of using raw wool and clay for architectural acoustic insulation walls.
The exhibition Zur Nachahmung empfohlen - Erkundungen in Ästhetik und Nachhaltigkeit, curated by Adrienne Goehler takes place in the Uferhallen from 15th May to July 16th and thereby is the concluding event of the travelling exhibition which from 2010 explored the transformative potentials of art and artistic research in social and environmental crisis.

Our 4-hour workshop »Talking Wool« will consist of presentations by Berlin and Brandenburg-based actors in the wool supply chain. The talks aim to cover the issues of shepherds, how fleece is shorn and (frequently not) collected and processed in Germany's remaining textile industry, small businesses using local wool to produce ethical textiles, gate-keeping mechanisms that hold these initiatives back, as well as the political changes that need to be made to secure a fair income for farmers and level the playing field for entrepreneurs to help use this valuable raw material. To close the loop and explain how wool fits into the circular economy, we hope to cover wool recycling, staggered downcycling and biodegradability.

The event will be in English.

Program

Program

3:00-3:15 OPENING
Welcome by Prof. Dr Lucy Norris, Hanna Wiesener & Dr Khashayar Razgandhi

3:15-4:15 WOOL TALKS
Brief Perspectives on Wool
Prof. Folke Köbberling: Produktionsstrecke Schafwolle im Austausch mit Pilz und Hanf
Niels Rickert: Monofunktionale Bahn-Lärmschutzwände beleben mittels substituierender Rohwolleeinbringung!
Yolanda Leask: Problematic gatekeepers: From shepherds to patent, certification and investments
Malte Möck: Living Labs for Co-Creating Innovations in Pasture-Based Livestock Farming and the GreenGrass Project
Johanna-Sophie Stock: From material to textile manufacturing, marketing and consumers needs
Maxie Grüter: Regionale Wertschöpfung durch qualitätsspezifische Verarbeitung
Jessica Farmer: New manufacturing processes for coarse wool

4:45-5:45 WOOL WEAVINGS
Moderated Workshop Groups around the Collected Issues and Potentials

6:00-7:00 WOOL MATTERS
Wrap up and Discussion around Emergent Convergences, moderated by Mina Mahouti and Kathrin Toepffer
Conclusion & Future Perspectives by Prof. Dr Lucy Norris, Hanna Wiesener & Dr Khashayar Razgandhi

7:00-8:00 GET TOGETHER & WOOL TOUR
Free Tour of the Exhibition: »Zur Nachahmung empfohlen - Erkundungen in Ästhetik und Nachhaltigkeit«

Collaborators

• Prof. Folke Köbberling
• Yolanda Leask (CloudWool)
• Jessica Farmer (DesignFarmBerlin)
• Mina Mahouti
• Johanna-Sophie Stock (lebenskleidung)

Activating Circular Networks

Calling all of you willing to engage with the wicked problems of building sustainable circular economies!
As researchers, practitioners, experts, enterprises and activists, we have multiple perspectives and different approaches to designing for material sustainability at different scales, creating new material ecologies and implementing system-wide change.
This new umbrella series of events aims to create a diverse range of formats to open up spaces of encounter between these different realms of activities to build on conversations and emergent co-creations.

by: Prof. Dr Lucy Norris, Hanna Wiesener, Dr Khashayar Razgandhi