December 17. Hands on matter: Fermentation and Kombucha

Monday, December 17, 19:00
Hands.on.matter: Fermentation and Kombucha feat. Alanna Lynch and Lena Ganswindt
Bimonthly program organized by Sandra Nicoline Nielsen and Tim van der Loo

PROGRAMME:
On the 17th of December we invite you to a anti-capitalistic celebration of Christmas by bringing our hands on diy production of fermentation and kombucha. The event consists of a presentation by the Berlin Art Prize 2018 awarded artist Alanna Lynch, who invites us into her fascinating universe of bio-materials. The talk is followed by a workshop facilitated by Tim van der Loo and Sandra Nielsen where we together make candy from scoby.

The event will also display an exposition by Irina Hefner showing the design process of a kombucha shirt, Lena Ganswindt showing samples of kombucha as a textile material in different colors and shapes, including some of the works by Alanna Lynch.

HANDS.ON.MATTER is an explorative collective of multidisciplinary creatives focusing on the matter of material by a questioning of resources, consumption, sustainability and culture through a bimonthly series of talks, workshops and expositions.

PHILOSOPHY: Hands.on.matter believes in taking a step back and rediscovering the kosmos of matter one material at the time, zooming in on compositions and zooming out on flows. The aspiration is to build new structures and (re)discover designs for a more sustainable and circular future. Hands.on.matter seeks to host thought provoking and desirable templates in the interdisciplinary field between design, art and architecture in the context of everyday life. Hereby Hands.on.matter invites local residents, entrepreneurs, artists and designers to participate.

ALLANA LYNCH: Alanna Lynch (b.1978) is a Canadian artist and researcher based in Berlin. She works with living organisms, biological materials and performance, examining the politics of affect and questions of agency. She explores the aesthetics of disgust and fear, with a focus on embodied knowledge and non-conscious forces. Working with difference, the visceral body and with ideas of contagion and care, she combines past studies in biology and psychology with experiences in activism. This shapes her perspectives, coming from art and science as well as from privileged and more marginal positions. She has exhibited and performed internationally and she is a founding member of the artist collective Scent Club Berlin. She was awarded the 2018 Berlin Art Prize.

LENA GANSWINDT: Lena Ganswindt is a textile design engineer with a focus on material design that is fully ecological and biodegradable. She graduated from Hochschule Niederrhein in Textile Design-Engineering in 2016 and is currently doing her master project in the course Textile and Surface Design at Kunsthochschule Weißensee. In her project she works with bacterial cellulose and experiences how designers co-perfom with living materials.

TIM VAN DER LOO: Tim van der Loo (co-founder of H.O.M) is an experimental multidisciplinary designer located in Berlin where he is working in between the fields of textile, furniture and illustration. He studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven were he graduated in 2016 and is currently doing a master in Textile and Surface design at Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin. His work engages with sustainable material, contrast, and tactility to generate playful objects

SANDRA NICOLINE NIELSEN: Sandra Nicoline Nielsen (co-founder of H.O.M) is a Techno-Anthropologist (Msc.) from Aalborg University, Denmark. She explores how socio-material practices supports transitions into new economies, and has in her Master’s thesis been working with social structures of Circular Economy in Berlin.

Photos by Benjamin Busch