Article in the Tagesspiegel Highlights the Interdisciplinary Exhibition
At the center of the exhibition »Fermenting Textiles« is a greenish-brown shirt made of coarse fabric used for hunting. It was treated with vouwo, a dyeing method practiced in the Marka-Dafing community in Burkina Faso for generations. An interdisciplinary team from »Matters of Activity« has systematically researched the dyeing technique for the first time, together with a master dyer from the West African community of Safané. You can read about their findings and how they relate to today's fast fashion in a profound Tagesspiegel article by Martin Ballaschk. The exhibition can be seen at the Art Laboratory Berlin until July 6.
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Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020
Exhibition and Talks
»Fermenting Textiles« explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material. The exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists and mirrors the multi-species collaborations that are integral to the mud dyeing process.
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Douny, Laurence (2024). Degumming process - cooking the cocoons. The British Museum. Image: https://doi.org/10.25420/britishmuseum.27960084.v1
Publication Project by Laurence Douny and Salif Sawadogo
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.
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Exhibition Opening DAOULA | sheen, 17.11.2022, Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin. Copyright: Matters of Activity
West African Wild Silk on its Way
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.
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Poster PhD presentations 2022. Layout: Ada Favaron
Doctoral Presentations at the MoA Retreat 2022
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.
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The Silkworm Project and Other Work
A Talk with Vivian Xu
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.
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Wild silk wrapper from the Marka Dafing in Safané, Burkina Faso (showing the sheen). Video still from the film installation at the exhibition »DAOULA | Sheen. West-African Wild Silk On Its Way« (Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin). Film installation by Thabo Thindi with film material from Salif Sawadog and others.
West-African Textile Craft Meets European Science and Design