Wild Silk

Weaving | Publications | Yarns/Fibers | Wild Silk For centuries, Indigenous wild silks have been traded across West Africa and used in Marka-Dafing’s textiles production in the Mouhoun regions of Burkina Faso. Over the past twenty years, the precious materials that are used by women for weaving their ceremonial wrappers called tuntun, which stands as their material identity, have become a scarce resource due to climate change and human impact on both the insect species and their ecosystem. The publication project by Cluster members Laurence Douny and Salif Sawadogo, as well as Lonsani Dayo and Abdoulaye Séré, aims at co-constructing digital documentation of wild silk production with close involvement of Marka-Dafing communities. more

Weaving | Daoula Sheen | Wild Silk | Science Communication The exhibition »DAOULA | sheen«, which can be seen at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin until June 30th, 2023, at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin, focuses on the natural formation and the cultural history of wild silk obtained from caterpillars in West Africa, and on the many and complex ways in which this unique material is viewed by microbiologists, materials scientists, and architects in Germany. Curated by MoA members Laurence Douny, Karin Krauthausen, and Felix Sattler, and co-created by a large and diverse multidisciplinary team, this unusual project sets out to stimulate dialogue between West African craft, European science, and design. more

Weaving | Filtering | Cutting | Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Doctoral Program | Climate | Haptics | More-Than-Human | Ocean | Robotics | Textiles | Tree Bark | Wild Silk | XR | Water | Science Communication The 2022 presentation of the Doctoral Program »Matters of Activity« at the MoA Retreat in September at Landgut Stober was both a review and an outlook of the doctoral research conducted at the Cluster between 2020 and 2022. Under the title »Scaling Matters: From the Lab to the Field, «Pre-Doctoral Researchers at varying stages of their research — from the very beginning to the final phase of their theses — presented their heterogeneous work whilst continuing to negotiate common themes, methods, questions and tools. The format combined talks and an exhibition and invited MoA Members to engage individually with the presentation and a selection of their research objects. Thanks to everyone involved for making possible this all-around successful event. Enjoy some visual impressions of the exhibition, as well as the talks and have a look at the booklet. more

Weaving | Wild Silk Beijing-born Vivian Xu is a media artist, designer and researcher currently based in Shanghai. In 2013, she received her MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons the New School for Design. She is an independent artist. more

Bacteria | Cellulose | Daoula Sheen | More-Than-Human | Textiles | Wild Silk | Yarns/Fibers more