Swamp Things! The Liveliness of Peatland Plants

Today, the pink pipes that network construction sites are the most visible reminders of Berlin's swampy origins, and our reliance on hydraulic engineering to build dams and drain fens, destroying peatland ecologies in our drive to colonize nature. »Swamp Things!« invites those peatland ecologies to the BHROX pavilion – as haunting echoes of Berlin’s watery past as fenland formed from glacial meltwaters.

Peatlands (fens, bogs, swamps, and marshes) cover just three percent of the Earth's surface, but when wet, they sequester twice as much carbon as all the biomass in the world’s forests combined. Rewetting peatlands is an urgent climate protection strategy that seeks to reverse centuries of peatland destruction around the world. Rewetting supports the nurturing of species of trees, grasses, flowers, mosses, berries and animals that once flourished in these liquid landscapes, and the sustainable harvesting of crops that thrive in wet peatlands to support human livelihoods (known as ›paludiculture‹). How can we nurture these peaty ecologies once more, and use their plants with care?

Working with local grasses harvested from fenland in the Oberes Rhinluch in Brandenburg, the exhibition explores the lively potential of peatland plants as sensuous materials through basketry techniques, open-source coiling machines, and multimodal workshops. Design research and materials science are useful tools for experimenting with the potential of these new and restored biomaterials. This novel material-driven design approach explores the active material properties of these grasses as whole plants rather than shredded biomass, and develops ways of using their fibers to their full potential for as long as possible. Through techniques such as coiled basketry, the fibrous properties of grasses can be manipulated into new architectural textile assemblages, creating abstract objects that spark the imagination, and, we hope, encourage lively conversations with our visitors!With Contributions by: Janne Ebel, Swantje Furtak, Wulf Hein, Daniel Hengst, Cholena de Koningh, Evey Kwong & Jasmin Martinez

Press

DIE BIOPIONIERE, Podcast biooekonomie.de, 15 July 2025: »Charlett Wenig - Die Naturstoffdesignerin«
https://biooekonomie.de/service/mediathek/biopioniere-der-podcast/charlett-wenig-die-naturstoffdesignerin

Credits

»Swamp Things!« is a collaboration of BHROX bauhaus reuse with the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, the Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und Bioökonomie, and weißensee kunsthochschule berlin, as part of the ＿matter Festival 2025. With kind support from the Petri family, Moorhofer Grünlandhof in Kremmen.

Team Credits

Curation, Design and Research: Charlett Wenig and Lucy Norris
Research Assistance: Kira Becker and Alena Stuhr
Research Collaboration: Ralf Pecenka
Project Management: Sophia Gräfe
Production Execution: Julia Blumenthal,
Production Assistance: Mareen Baumeister, Marco Bott, Nick Geipel, Nicholas Plunkett, Tobias Schmidt, Jan von Szada-Borryszkowski, Tonja Wetzel and Laura Zoretto
IT: Martin Wagner
Texts: Lucy Norris and Charlett Wenig
Proofreading: Elisabeth Obermaier
Graphics: Nicholas Plunkett
Illustrations: Florian Weisz
Photography: Michael Pfisterer
Event Assistance: Senta Bannick and Antonia Katharina Giebner
Press & PR: Antje Nestler and Carolin Ott
Finances: Kathrin Bauer, Sandra Bauer and Romy Rössler
Team BHROX bauhaus reuse: Robert K. Huber, Peter Winter, Adelina Nicolăescu and Jiří Ferenc

Dates

Vernissage: 7 July 2025: 6:00–8:00 pm
Exhibition: 8–20 July 2025
Opening Hours: Tue–Sun: 12:00–8:00 pm

Free admission

Events Program

15 July 2025, 5:00–8:00 pm, Foraging Workshop: Taste the Swamp with Cholena de Koningh, in English

In this workshop, we’ll create our own Swamp Sodas—naturally carbonated beverages crafted from wild flora foraged from the peatland. Through this hands-on experience, we’ll explore the basics of natural fermentation and learn how to capture the essence of the swamp into a living, wildcrafted probiotic soda. You’ll be guided through how to find, identify, and harvest wetland plants, along with the many ways they can be used beyond the workshop. Together, we’ll (re)connect with the forgotten knowledge of the peatland and explore why it’s so crucial to sustain these unique ecosystems. Please register until July 10th, 2025 via charlett.wenig [​at​] mpikg.mpg.de.

19 July 2025, 1:00–5:00 pm, Workshop: handcraftmachines with Jasmin Martinez, in German/English

How do open-source design tools influence handcrafts—and how do handcrafts, in turn, shape digital technologies? Can they help us rethink material ecologies and resource management in times of crisis? In this hands-on workshop, handcraftmachines, we will explore these questions through direct interaction with the open-source machines used to create the yarns featured in Swamp Things! Participants will co-create with both the machines and each other to make yarns and artifacts using swamp grasses.

Whether you're a maker, designer, researcher, or simply curious – join us, experiment, and discover new ways of making! Families with children are warmly welcome – there's something to explore for everyone.

19 July 2025, 5:00–7:00 pm, Panel: Swamps_matter, with Swantje Furtak, Daniel Hengst, and Evey Kwong, Moderator: Lucy Norris, in English

What do we imagine when we think about swamps, bogs, fens and peatlands? How and why might swamps come to matter to us, and what stories do we tell about them?

Who among us has experienced being in peatlands, walked across their squelchy, spongy soils, paid attention to their swampy ecologies and learned to recognize the plants and wildlife which thrive there? Many of us live in drained swamps such as that on which Berlin was founded, but few of us recognize the traces of former peatlands, and we are often unaware of their renewed significance for our shared future. Through talks, film, and participation, we will explore what’s at stake in attempts to rewet drained peatlands, the labor entailed in growing, nurturing, and harvesting peatland plants for human use, and how crafting with natural materials such as peatland grasses opens up new ways of understanding ourselves and our environments.

This event brings together diverse approaches to understanding peatland plants and our relationship to them, while surrounded by snaking coils of peatland grasses. These lively ‘swamp things’ are briefly re-wilding the BHROX pavilion - set in the middle of Ernst Reuter Platz, surrounded by a multi-lane roundabout, it echoes earlier visions of the future - from the original modernist architecture of the Bauhaus in the 1920s, to the urban city planner’s dream of an auto-utopia in the 1950s.

No registration needed.

Contributors:
Swantje Furtak, journalist and documentary maker, will open up the topic of living with peatlands with a short talk and an experiment in jointly imagining.

Daniel Hengst, artist and peatland enthusiast, will present his new video work »A New Gleaning«.

Evey Kwong, designer and researcher, will discuss her practice-based research using basketry as a medium in a talk entitled »Craft as a Tool for Design Research«.

Moderator:
Lucy Norris, Professor of Design Research & Material Culture, Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin. Associated Member, Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Lucy is co-curator of the exhibition »Swamp Things! The liveliness of Peatland Plants«.