Termine

Wie lassen sich gesammeltes Wissen und Materialien in zirkuläre Praktiken überführen? Zum Abschluss der Projektlaufzeit lädt die Living Library zu einem Abend mit Gesprächen, künstlerischen Inputs und Performances ein. Von Impulsvorträgen zu Afterlife und Urban Gardening über Soundperformances, bioregionalem Dinner-Picknick und Kompost-Ritual: Seid dabei und stoßt mit uns auf das Ende und einen Neuanfang an! Zum Abschluss feiern wir den offiziellen Launch der Publikation – begleitet von Drinks und DJs.

Rückmeldung: https://cloud.hfg-karlsruhe.de/apps/forms/s/9R6cQ8GbjJPsfjaXsHZjRYfQ

Wie funktioniert eigentlich das Erstellen von Karten? Welche Informationen braucht man dafür, welche nicht? Und was hat das mit Bioregionalität und Knotenkunde zu tun? 

Findet es heraus bei unserem „Karten und Knoten“ Workshop: Hier zeigen wir euch spielerisch und experimentell, wie ihr ganz individuellen Karten eurer Umgebung erstellt. Dazu gibt’s Knüpf-und Knotentechniken – und ganz nebenbei auch noch ein paar Infos zum Living Library Projekt. Kommt vorbei!

Zeitraum: 12:00 – 15:00
Ort: Living Library, HfG EG

Der Workshop befasst sich mit Böden und ihrer wichtigen Rolle im Ökosystem und untersucht Möglichkeiten, einen gesunden Boden durch nachhaltige und innovative Gestaltung und künstlerische Praktiken zu erhalten.

Dabei lernen Teilnehmende u.a. wie man einen Wurm-Kompost baut und dessen nährstoffreichen Boden als wirksamen Pflanzendünger nutzt.

Der Workshop steht allen Interessierten offen und ist kostenfrei. Er findet in Englisch statt. Die Anmeldung erfolgt unter livinglibrary@hfg-karlsruhe.de.

Um 18:00 Uhr, zum Abschluss des Workshops, sind Teilnehmende in das Kino Blauer Salon zur Vorführung des Dokumentarfilms "Taste of the Land" eingeladen.

Zudem wird am Samstag, 22.11.25 im ZKM eine geführte Tour zur Ausstellung „Assembling Grounds“ angeboten, bei welcher die Living Library mitwirkt.

Opening «La Carte Locale», a one-night-only wine bar hosted by the Living Library. Join for a glass of wine and an evening of mapping memories, personal stories, and knowledge of the local region around Karlsruhe.

August 2nd from 6pm until 10pm during the annual Karlsruher Museumsnacht.

Lorenzstraße 15 (HfG Karlsruhe)

How can materials and knowledge be collected locally, used, and then returned to the cycle? To answer this question, the Bio Design Lab team is studying biological materials, crafts, and knowledge from the region within 50 kilometers of Karlsruhe.

The team is studying materials like wood from the Black Forest and food scraps from the city. They are also looking at old handicraft techniques, stories from the region, the region’s landscape, and its economy. The team aims to gather knowledge and experience over a period of two years. This experiential learning approach will be tested and improved through structured workshops and hands-on outdoor exercises.

404: Archive Not Found shows the project as an installation and also addresses its digital development. The project team’s approach is explained, and materials, digital objects, and the Living Library archive itself are displayed. The installation makes us ask: Can knowledge and materials be stored digitally? What happens to them when the people who care for them are no longer around? Do digital files decompose over time? Compost is a symbol for the project. It shows: everything changes.
Old things disappear, and new things emerge. The archive is always changing. The earth will become the final, permanent storage place.

On view July 26, 2025 – Feb 8, 2026

With designers Freia Achenbach and Hannah Segerkrantz, students explored hempcrete and rope-making. After field visits to a hemp processing site and a traditional ropemaker, the workshop highlighted hemp as a material of ecological resilience, combining building techniques with craft processes.

Freia Achenbach is an artist and designer creating objects and spaces that foster emotionally resonant and ecologically grounded relationships between people and their environment. Her practice is guided by a continuous process of researching, sensing, and experimenting with materials, crafts, and technologies - combining analytical thinking with intuitive making. This approach translates into outcomes across a variety of scales, ranging from material research, bespoke objects to public installations.

The notion of agency is always central in the work of Hannah Segerkrantz, and goes in parallel with the re-definition of what we address as our ‘surroundings’. With an interest for the intersection between architecture and radical ecologies, her approach to research is environmental, sensitive and contextual. Whether exploring the cultural background and gestures of architectural materials, or studying the relations between objects, people and local traditions, she offers tools and means for bridging our connection with the environments we inhabit.

Media-artist Filipa César and the design studio Atelier Schaft introduced invasive species as controversial yet fertile material sources. During the field trip to the woods with a local forester, invasive plants were removed under expert supervision, while in the workshop - using composite binders and pigments - conventional notions of belonging, ownership, and value in ecology were challenged.

Prof. Filipa César is an artist, filmmaker, educator and community organizer. She is interested in the fluid borders between cinema and its reception, the politics and poetics of the moving image and archival practices. Since 2011, César has been collectively researching the militant cinema practice of the African Liberation Movement in Guinea Bissau, through the production of workshops, archives, films, performances, publications and community gatherings.

Atelier Schaft is a design studio based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands focusing on projects that combine design, nature, and handcrafted bio-materials. Known for its innovative use of invasive plants such as the Giant hogweed, the studio crafts unique objects, facilitates material workshops, and embraces collective creation.

Tour & Talk ist ein offenes Format für alle HfG Angehörigen und die Öffentlichkeit, bei dem die Räumlichkeiten der Living Library und die zugehörige Materialsammlung vorgestellt werden. Die Besucher werden in das Materialregalsystem eingeführt, das unter anderem von HfG-Studierenden während des vergangenen Wintersemesters entwickelt wurde. Abschließend folgt eine Frage- und Diskussionsrunde.

11:00 - 12:30, Living Library (EG)

In diesem Mini-Workshop für HfG-Mitarbeiter/innen und -Studierende erweitern wir die große Karte der Living Library um eure persönlichen Geschichten und euer lokales Wissen über Karlsruhe. Kommt für 5 Minuten vorbei oder setzt euch auf einen netten Gratis-Öko-Kaffee zu uns, alles ist willkommen!

13.00 - 14.00, Living Library (EG)

A field trip led by product designer Simon Gehring and wood mediator Stefan Kudermann connected forest ecosystems, carpentry shops, and timber factories. The workshop on joinery emphasised wood as a responsive material, asking how construction can shift from extraction to dialogue.

Simon Gehring is an Industrial Designer, Researcher and Digital Artist, and Computational Designer. His work is characterised by the use of digital and generative tools and the exploration of innovative manufacturing processes and materials.

Stefan Kudermann is the Managing Director of Zentrum Holzbau Schwarzwald GmbH (ZHS). At the Black Forest company Holzbau Bruno Kaiser, he worked as a field sales representative, project developer, and marketing manager. He is also a member of the LEADER decision-making body and a member of the Freiburg Architecture Forum.

Designers Nina Flaitz and Liene Kazaka introduced mycelium as both a biological network and a design material. After a visit to the local fungi herbarium and a mushroom hike in the Rhine floodplains, students experimented with mycelium growth and its textural properties in the lab.

Nina Flaitz is a graphic designer and material researcher based between Stuttgart and Lausanne. She earned her diploma in Visual Communication from the Stuttgart State Academy of Fine Arts in 2022. Nina Flaitz is the founder of Mycelium Resources, a research platform dedicated to exploring the potential of mycelium-based materials and their practical applications. The platform aims to promote innovation and facilitate collaboration among experts in mycelium research and development.

Liene Kazaka is a designer and researcher exploring material-based storytelling through sustainability across disciplines. She focuses on living systems to develop fabrication methods that reflect human-nature relationships. After working as a woven textile designer for the luxury market in Scotland, she pursued an MA in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins to investigate alternative materials and approaches. Her practice now centres on interdisciplinary experimental research, particularly involving fungi.

With the material designers Verena Brom and Loana Flores, students traced local food waste streams, visiting producers and distributors. In the workshop, students transformed discarded matter into dyes and printing pastes, linking sustainability with colour, craft, and storytelling.

Verena Brom is a material designer, product developer, and researcher based in Berlin, Germany. During her studies she started 'A Matter of Fruit', which develops new plant-based materials. Verena holds a B.Sc. in Clothing Technology / Fabric Processing from the University of Applied Science Berlin.

Loana Flores graduated as a Fashion designer at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2011 she started 'Ocloya Studio', an artistic and multidisciplinary study emphasising new ideas, languages and possible solutions for textile and fashion.

Designers Carolin Schelkle and Nina Havermans guided visits to sheep farms and processing sites. The workshop explored felting and composite recipes, reframing wool as a bioregional resource with social as well as material entanglements.

Nina Havermans is a designer who graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2012. She specialised in biomaterials for sustainable design, art and architectural applications.

Carolin Schelkle is a Designer and Material Researcher from Lake Constance, Germany, holding a Bachelor of Arts in Product- and Communication Design from the Free University of Bolzano, Italy and a Master of Product Design from écal (Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne), Switzerland.

With Markus Bier and Vik Bayker/Michael Reindel (Compost Collective, Vienna), students learned about composting as both ecological practice and speculative method. Activities ranged from making biochar to building compost heaps, while also reflecting on cycles of transformation. Field visits included a local school garden and Karlsruhe’s community gardens.

Markus Bier likes the transformative power of fire. He is passionate about biomass, soil and the role of microorganisms in all digestion and transformation processes. Since 2012, Markus has been producing and utilising biochar from residual biomass in gardens, crops and food waste. After founding the German office of the international NGO Solidaridad Network in 2017, he is now responsible foar coffee as Corporate Partnerships Manager.

Michael Reindel and Vik Bayer are members of Compost Collective (Vienna). Within his sculptural practice Michael Reindel interlaces local and global circumstances of places, in order to correlate them with infrastructural processes, which form our present. Vik Bayer is an artist and filmmaker who mainly works on and with agriculture as a form of care-taking that entails the possibility of radically changing our hegemonic extractivist reality.

The education programme unfolded through a series of two-day events, each combining a field trip, a colloquium, and a hands-on workshop. These gatherings became spaces where knowledge from different domains intersected, linking materials to the locations and communities from which they emerged, while connecting students with practitioners who could guide both conceptual reflection and practical experimentation. By bringing together local and international voices, the programme cultivated a culture of equal exchange. 

The first day centred on exploration. Participants visited local sources of sustainable materials, observed natural cycles, and engaged in early experiments such as fibre extraction, composite formation, or cultivating biomaterials. The colloquia then provided space to share insights from the excursions, situating them within broader discussions on biodesign and bioregioning, new materialism, or more-than-human narratives. Hosted at the HfG Karlsruhe and publicly streamed online, these sessions opened the exchange to a wider audience while weaving together perspectives from students, makers, and researchers. 

The second day shifted the focus to making. Guided by invited practitioners, students processed and worked directly with the materials collected during the field trips. This phase emphasised knowledge and skill-building, showing how theoretical research and ecological reflection could be translated into practice. By engaging with materials through touch, experimentation, and iteration, students discovered both the potential and the limitations of local resources, insights they can carry on into their own independent practice.

The team will start the workshop with a brief introduction about the Living Library project and how it relates to the Bio Design Lab, now located at the Ufo space, showing what tools they offer on their website and how students can use them to explore the local area. Furthermore, the team will introduce the Living Library's new space, its educational programme and how students can sign up for it.

The students will discover more in detail about the material library display and the shelf system, through a quick introduction of a compost prototype and highlighting a few materials’ properties, which can be worked on in the Bio Design Lab. The workshop, suitable for a maximum of 15 students,  will end with a group activity learning in detail how to create a bioplastic material.

Feiert mit uns die neuen Räumlichkeiten des Bio Design Labs: Ab dem Wintersemester steht das BDL im Glasrondell (EG, Haupteingang Lorenzstraße) mit einem Wetlab für steriles Arbeiten mit bio-basierten und lebendigen Materialien und einem offenem Drylab für kontaminiertes Experimentieren zur Verfügung!

Stoßt mit uns auf die Eröffnung der Living Library an! Bis März 2026 dient die zirkuläre Materialbibliothek und die dazugehörige Website als Experimentalzone, Lehrort und Dauerausstellung für lokale Materialien und Produktionsweisen in einem Radius von 50km. Die Artefakte aus regionalen Exkursionen und Workshops werden ab dem WS2024/25 hier zu sehen sein und live kompostiert.

Erkundet in der Ausstellungs-Sektion Common Grounds in der ZKM Ausstellung „Fellow Travellers“ bisherige Projekte des Bio Design Labs. Die Rückschau zeigt back-to-back mit dem ZKM Streuobstwiesenprojekt ausgewählte Arbeiten rund um more-than-human design und permazirkuläre künstlerische Praktiken.

Auf diese freudign Ereignisse möchten wir gerne mit euch anstoßen – am 20. September um 18:30 Uhr im EG der HfG, Lichthof 4 (ehemalige Location des BDL).

Es gibt Drinks und Music – und im Anschluss werden wir gemeinsam zur Eröffnung der Fellow Travellers Ausstellung um 19:30 Uhr ins ZKM rübergehen.

The Living Futures-Colloquium is a series format aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in the HfG Karlsruhe and exploration in the realms of bio art and design, new materialism, posthumanism, more-than-human narratives, sustainability, and life cycles.

This time we’ll talk about permacircular museums, compost-core practices and the aliveness of materials with guests Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro and Eva-Maria Lopez.

A Colloquium on Experimental Ecologies, Posthuman Narratives and Beyond.

The Living Futures–Colloquium is a series format aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in the HfG and exploration in the realms of bio art and design, new materialism, posthumanism, more-thanhuman narratives, sustainability, and life cycles. This series brings together experts and practitioners from diverse fields such as art history, product design, communication design, media art, and photography to delve into the intersections of their disciplines with cutting-edge concepts in contemporary art and design.

Franziska Müller-Reissmann, gelernte Restauratorin und langjährige Leiterin des Materialarchivs an der ZHDK gibt Einblicke in ihre Dissertationsforschung und deckt so manche Mythen und Geschichten um (nachhaltige) Materialien auf.

Aufgepasst – aufgrund von Vortragsüberschneidungen findet der Talk bereits um 17:30 Uhr auf der Lichtbrücke statt. Wer danach noch Input-hungrig ist, kann im Anschluss direkt weiter zur HfG/ZKM Gesprächsreihe mit Boris Buden im ZKM.