Material Legacies

Material Form Function | Material Legacies The film »Fordlandia Malaise« deals with the memory and present of Fordlandia (Brazil). Henry Ford had the company town built in the Amazon rainforest in 1928. His ambition was to end the British rubber monopoly by using raw material from Brazil for the car production in the United States. Following the film screening, Susana de Sousa Dias, director of the film and scholar of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, and Robert Stock will reflect on what characterizes this film and this type of documentary. more

Material Form Function | Yarns/Fibers | Material Legacies | Science Communication The Round Table »On Fibers and Mixtures« was part of the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum and at the same time its closing event. The Round Tables 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. On February 23rd, Professor for material design and Cluster Member Christiane Sauer discussed their work with Emanuele Coccia, Peter Fratzl, and Beatriz Morales, moderated by architect and Cluster Member Iva Rešetar. more

Material Form Function | Weaving | Yarns/Fibers | Material Legacies Initiated by the »Architectural Yarns« Research Group at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«, the Workshop FIBROUS EXCHANGE revisits the Work Exotica III by Ritzi Jacobi and takes inspiration for a transdisciplinary exchange between textile design, materials science and architecture. During a hands-on exploration with off-the-loom textile techniques, we seek to transfer knowledge from the different disciplines into an architectural context. We take a closer look at plant fibers and various reversible binding techniques to explore large fiber bundles as the basis for a new construction method - Architectural Yarns. more

Material Form Function | Sand | Material Legacies | Science Communication Don't miss the Round Table »Politics and Poetics of Sand« which is part of the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On February 9th design anthropologist and Cluster Member Michaela Büsse will discuss her work with geographer Katherine Dawson (University College London), communication expert Hannah Tollefson (McGill University Montreal) and environmental anthropologist Jerry Zee (Princeton University). Moderation: Jeff Diamanti (University of Amsterdam). more

Weaving | Material Form Function | Material Legacies | Tree Bark | Science Communication We cordially invite you to the Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten« which continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 26th designer and Cluster Member Charlett Wenig will discuss her work with Ferréol Berendt (HNE Eberswalde) and Nikolaus Stolle (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt). Moderated by cultural theorist and Cluster Member Robert Stock. more

Material Form Function | Cutting | Material Legacies | Science Communication The Round Table »On the Fabrication of Organs: Vascular Structures, Medical Needs and Critical Speculations« continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 12th Emile de Visscher and Igor Sauer will discuss their work with the artist Lyndsey Walsh. Moderated by Martin Müller. more

Cutting | Material Form Function | Material Legacies | Science Communication | Tessellation The Round Table »Tessellated Material Systems«« continued the new format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. This Thursday, Karola Dierichs, Lennart Eigen, John Nyakatura and Felix Rasehorn discussed their work with Jörg Petruschat and Alwin Cubasch.   more

Material Form Function | Textiles | Material Legacies | Science Communication The Round Table »Self-Shaping Textiles at the Intersection of Fashion, Architecture and Technology« kicked off a new format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting project in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On November 24th Lorenzo Guiducci and Agata Kycia discussed their work with the architect Giovanni Betti and the fashion sociologist Antonella Giannone. more

Object Space Agency | Cutting | Material Legacies | Speculative Design | Performance Cluster Members Maxime le Calvé and Yoonha Kim were delighted to invite to two days of stretching senses school workshops on 24th & 25th of November with Dorte Bjerre Jensen at the Cluster and in the Kunstgewerbemuseum at the »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« exhibition. The two workshops helped pushing forward collective experiments in speculative ethnography and research-as-exhibition. They brought together bodies and spaces into motion, and evaluated the potentials of an interdisciplinary practice of »scoring« to explore, describe and analyze in first-person the activity of images, spaces, and materials based on the micro-phenomenological method.

Material Form Function | Fish Skins | Sand | Rubber | Textiles | Tree Bark | Yarns/Fibers | Tessellation | Science Communication | Material Legacies The exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin explored contingencies and ruptures between traditional crafts and the most recent developments at the crossroads of material research, design, engineering, and architecture. It brought together artifacts from the museum’s collection with work-in-progress installations by designers and researchers from the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in order to initiate a dialogue about the historical, contemporary, and future conditions under which materiality unfolds.
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more

Science Communication | Air | Sand | Bacteria | Cellulose | Cloud | Fungi/Mycelium | Hemp | Prototype / Model | Stretching Materialities | Material Legacies | Daoula Sheen | Textiles | Tree Bark | Yarns/Fibers | XR | Willow | Wool | Water | Wood With the »Activarium«, we want to actively engage with potential partners from the industry, start-ups, NGOs, politics and society as a whole to initiate an exploratory exchange on active materials, bio- & culture-inspired innovation as well as sustainability approaches. We want visitors to experience our prototypes to make MoA’s intentions and research tangible and accessible. The »Activarium« serves as a work-in-progress showcase of different research strands and processes. Our visitors can dive into the research as it's happening, before its published results. Walk in and experience the »Activarium« Tuesdays, 10.00 am–12.15 pm or Thursdays, 2.00–4.00 pm! If you are a group of more than 5 people or if the opening hours do not fit your schedule, please contact us via moa.activarium@hu-berlin.de to schedule a visit! more