fashioning trash, performing gender
Prof. Antje Engelmann & Prof. Nik Haffner & Aimée Grünewald & Edgar Mauser (Visual Arts & Design & Performance)
Deutsch/English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Beginn: 8.1.2024, 10 Uhr, HZT, Studio 11, Campus Uferstudios, Uferstraße 23, 13357 Berlin

How can clothes or objects that are thrown away as trash be creatively reused?  How can we reflect on trash as an archaeology of objects and as cultural remains in which also gender is inscribed? What cultural functions do objects hold and how can they be reappropriated, emotionalised and repurposed? How can we become more aware about a less wasteful and more mindful use of resources when choosing, sharing or (re)making our clothes? The project is looking at playful ways gender can be (de)constructed and performed by the ways how we move, how we dress and how differently we move depending on what we wear.

The project invites students to explore the connections between body, movement, clothing, waste, materials and their reuse, both theoretically and practically. At the beginning of the week, we will introduce artworks, texts and examples of designers who produce clothes on the basis of up-cycling, zero-waste and with resources from textile waste dumps. We will share simple movement improvisations and first try-outs to encourage participants to develop their own creative forms of exploration. During the second half of the week the participants will go on to realise and document their own ideas within a large studio-atelier-workshop.

Prof. Antje Engelmann studied fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts and experimental film at the Universitat de Belles Arts in Barcelona. Her multimedia works, performances and films have been shown internationally in exhibitions and film festivals where she has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships. Her artistic interests include ethnographic and sociological issues as well as image theories and body discourses. She assembles narratives on image and sound to perform them. As a trained dance pedagogue, she includes the body in her concrete educational approach as a carrier of knowledge, generator of knowledge and constant actor.

Nik Haffner is dancer, choreographer and since 2012 the artistic director of HZT Berlin - Inter-University Centre for Dance. Many of his choreographic works were developed in collaboration with other artists (a.o. with Christina Ciupke and Mart Kangro). Following his interest in collaborative practices and interdisciplinary exchange, Nik Haffner has been developing educational formats and feedback approaches in artistic contexts, a.o. as guest-artist with ZKM Karlsruhe, P.A.R.T.S. Brussels, Institut del Teatre Barcelona and Ohio State University.