Becoming Beginners.
Design in times of post-growth

We are all Becoming Beginners.
Shifting realities, reflecting, and resetting our ways.
Ways of our approach to design and communication and connecting with the essence of life forms. 

The pace of current change translates directly into the field of design. Research and design methods are no longer applicable in addressing the challenges of the present day, which leads to reflection on the existing ways of operating in the world. The beginner's attitude is an encouragement to develop new design and research strategies that will make a real contribution to generating positive change for the benefit of people and the environment and shift the center of gravity from control to collaboration, from individualism to collectivism, and from independence to interdependence.

Project curators: Agnieszka Polkowska & Marta Wyrzykowska (Touching Points)

Project is financially supported by The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation

 

Chapter 1: The Stall | Hofgut Rimpertstweiler Demeter | Bodensee

The first chapter of the project in the form of a series of design workshops was dedicated to students of the Design Faculty of the Academy of Art in Stettin. The aim of it was to establish deeper quality of relationship between each other, also with the environment as well as with objects and technologies, through contact with already existing circular structures on the Hofgut Rimpertsweiler farm, promoting original and effective practices of living and sustainable design.

Students of the Academy of Art in Stettin became wanderers exploring local genius loci. Equipped with Charlottenburgers (cloth of wanderers) we collected impressions and raw materials and created a collective Wunderkammer.

With material found on the farm, we built a market stall - a platform for what has been experienced and learned. The result is a social public space, inviting the community to exchange stories, and knowledge while pounding collected leaves and flowers into the cloth. We continue to unroll the cloth in new places. The printed fabric becomes a shelter for people who share their stories, perceptible through the preserved flowers of the particular environment. 

Supervised by Studio Œ (studio-oe.com) and Touching Points (touchingpoints.eu) 

Chapter 2: Flower Hammering workshop | Baumschule Kulturforum | Berlin

Location: Baumschule Kulturforum (baumschule-kulturforum.de)

We immersed ourselves in the creative observation of surroundings of Berlin’s Kulturforum & Tiergarten. 

Invited by: Fanny Brandauer
Neue Nationalgalerie, Atelier Le Balto, Stiftung St.Matthäus

Between Neue Nationalgalerie, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Philharmonie Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Kunstbibliothek, Kupferstichkabinett, MusikinstrumentenMuseum and Gemäldegalerie the freely accessible artistic and horticultural installation Baumschule Kulturforum was created in summer 2023 under the artistic direction of Klaus Biesenbach and atelier le balto. Little by little, green islands of young tree groves will colonise the stone-paved, open space of the Kulturforum. As new actors in the urban space, they invite visitors to linger, come together, discuss and participate. The Baumschule Kulturforum aims to sustainably improve the quality of time spent in the Kulturforum and enable a new view of a cultural quarter that was once intended as a green extension of the Tiergarten – and could become this again.

Program: Agnieszka Polkowska and Marta Wyrzykowska with students of the Academy of Art in Stettin  

Design: Students of Art Academy in Stettin: Aleksandra Brejwo, Julia Galewicz, Alicja Fijał, Michał Sietnicki, Olaf Stachurski, Dawid Fik.

Supervised by Studio Œ (studio-oe.com) and Touching Points (touchingpoints.eu) 

Photos by Peter Oliver Wolff

Becoming Beginners.
Design in times of post-growth

We are all Becoming Beginners.
Shifting realities, reflecting, and resetting our ways.
Ways of our approach to design and communication and connecting with the essence of life forms. 

The pace of current change translates directly into the field of design. Research and design methods are no longer applicable in addressing the challenges of the present day, which leads to reflection on the existing ways of operating in the world. The beginner's attitude is an encouragement to develop new design and research strategies that will make a real contribution to generating positive change for the benefit of people and the environment and shift the center of gravity from control to collaboration, from individualism to collectivism, and from independence to interdependence.

Project curators: Agnieszka Polkowska & Marta Wyrzykowska (Touching Points)

Project is financially supported by The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation

 

Chapter 1: The Stall | Hofgut Rimpertstweiler Demeter | Bodensee

The first chapter of the project in the form of a series of design workshops was dedicated to students of the Design Faculty of the Academy of Art in Stettin. The aim of it was to establish deeper quality of relationship between each other, also with the environment as well as with objects and technologies, through contact with already existing circular structures on the Hofgut Rimpertsweiler farm, promoting original and effective practices of living and sustainable design.

Students of the Academy of Art in Stettin became wanderers exploring local genius loci. Equipped with Charlottenburgers (cloth of wanderers) we collected impressions and raw materials and created a collective Wunderkammer.

With material found on the farm, we built a market stall - a platform for what has been experienced and learned. The result is a social public space, inviting the community to exchange stories, and knowledge while pounding collected leaves and flowers into the cloth. We continue to unroll the cloth in new places. The printed fabric becomes a shelter for people who share their stories, perceptible through the preserved flowers of the particular environment. 

Supervised by Studio Œ (studio-oe.com) and Touching Points (touchingpoints.eu) 

Chapter 2: Flower Hammering workshop | Baumschule Kulturforum | Berlin

Location: Baumschule Kulturforum (baumschule-kulturforum.de)

We immersed ourselves in the creative observation of surroundings of Berlin’s Kulturforum & Tiergarten. 

Invited by: Fanny Brandauer
Neue Nationalgalerie, Atelier Le Balto, Stiftung St.Matthäus

Between Neue Nationalgalerie, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Philharmonie Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Kunstbibliothek, Kupferstichkabinett, MusikinstrumentenMuseum and Gemäldegalerie the freely accessible artistic and horticultural installation Baumschule Kulturforum was created in summer 2023 under the artistic direction of Klaus Biesenbach and atelier le balto. Little by little, green islands of young tree groves will colonise the stone-paved, open space of the Kulturforum. As new actors in the urban space, they invite visitors to linger, come together, discuss and participate. The Baumschule Kulturforum aims to sustainably improve the quality of time spent in the Kulturforum and enable a new view of a cultural quarter that was once intended as a green extension of the Tiergarten – and could become this again.

Program: Agnieszka Polkowska and Marta Wyrzykowska with students of the Academy of Art in Stettin  

Design: Students of Art Academy in Stettin: Aleksandra Brejwo, Julia Galewicz, Alicja Fijał, Michał Sietnicki, Olaf Stachurski, Dawid Fik.

Supervised by Studio Œ (studio-oe.com) and Touching Points (touchingpoints.eu) 

Photos by Peter Oliver Wolff