Round Table »On Fibers and Mixtures«

The Round Table discussion »On Fibers and Mixtures« on February, 23rd, 2023 was the last event in the Round Table series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. It was initiated by the research group »Architectural Yarns« that explores the possibilities of ecological regeneration and repair in architecture through textiles – by making temporary, provisional structures from fibrous, biological materials.

Their installation »Yarns as Mixtures« in the »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« exhibition entered into a dialogue with the tapestry »Exotica III« of Ritzi Jacobi from the KGM collection. As part of the »New Tapestry« movement and the international exhibition »Textile Objekte« held at the KGM in 1975, Jacobi´s work broke with artistic conventions, especially with decorative aspects of textile making, to explore tapestry as an ambiguous medium between sculpture, architecture and textile art. By weaving an unusual combination of fibers, such as sisal, goat and horse hair – tangible and pliable – these tapestries suggest a model of how materials, their techniques and histories co-exist in textile environments.

With the guests - the philosopher Emanuele Coccia and the artist Beatriz Morales as well as the material scientist and Cluster Co-Director Peter Fratzl – the architects and Cluster members Christiane Sauer and Iva Rešetar discussed fibrous architectures in relation to mixtures – across disciplinary contexts. Mixtures were not only seen as the art of interconnecting, but as a site of flow and mutual co-production. Taking examples of plants, biomaterials, composites, textiles,the participants asked how does this view challenge materials as singular, homogenous, and even solid entities? And what new forms of (un)making and regeneration of the environment arise from this?

The Round Table series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« represented each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brought a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage.