Upcoming workshops and colloquiums

Mon 13 Jan and Tue 14 Jan 2025

Food waste with Verena Brom and Loana Flores

More information will be published later.

Day 1 (Mon 13 Jan, 10:00 ~ 16:00)

Colloquium (Mon 13 Jan, 19:00 ~ 21:00)

Day 2 (Tue 14 Jan, 10:00 ~ 16:00)


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Mon 3 Feb and Tue 4 Feb 2025

Mycelium with Nina Flaitz and Liene Kazaka

More information will be published later.

Day 1 (Mon 3 Feb, 10:00 ~ 16:00)

Colloquium (Mon 3 Feb, 19:00 ~ 21:00)

Day 2 (Tue 4 Feb, 10:00 ~ 16:00)


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Past events

Mon 4 Nov and Tue 5 Nov 2024

Composting as transforming, speculating, and writing with Markus Bier, Vik Bayer, and Michael Reindel

Join us for this first two-day Living Library workshop and colloquium hosted by guests Markus Bier, Michael Reindel and Vik Bayer. Together, we explore composting from different angles: not only as a technique for transforming organic matter, but also as an artistic method. Embedded in practices of speculation and writing together, we will make biochar, sharpen our microscopic gaze on organisms that are constantly moving around and within us, and build a compost heap to invite these microorganisms to enhance what we call waste.

Photo: (C) Compost Collective

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 for 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.

Day 1 (Mon 4 Nov, 10:00 ~ 17:00)

On this first workshop day we will work both at the Living Library and in the field. We will start at the HfG in the morning and travel to the Freien Aktiven Schule in Neureut in the afternoon. Next to that, we will install microorganism traps at different places around the academy to study the milieus of different organisms.

Colloquium (Mon 4 Nov, 19:00 ~ 21:00)

The colloquium is an open discussion format hosted by the participating makers and students aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in the HfG Karlsruhe. Together, we explore the realms of bio art and design, new materialism, post-humanism, more-than-human narratives, sustainability, and life cycles. Visitors are welcome to join both in-person and online.

Day 2 (Tue 5 Nov, 10:00 ~ 17:30)

The second workshop day will again be spent both in the academy and in the field. Using the knowledge we gathered on the first day, this second day is an invitation to reflect on temporalities, to practice relationality and to gradually unlearn anthropocentrism through more-than-human collaboration. We continue the workshop with a visit to the Urbane Gärten Karlsruhe in Daxlanden and finish back at the HfG around 17.30.

Mon 2 Dec and Tue 3 Dec 2024

Weaving Bioregional Wool Networks with Nina Havermans and Carolin Schelkle

Photo: (C) Carolin Schelkle

A field trip and workshop dedicated to understanding local wool production and eco-centric material exploration led by guests Nina Havermans and Carolin Schelkle.

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.

Day 1 (Mon 2 Dec, 09:00 ~ 16:00)

On the first day we plan to visit a wool processing factory, specialising in wool felt, to learn about their processes, and hopefully acquire wool offcuts or waste. We also plan a visit to two wool farms nearby—a large-scale operation and a smaller family-run farm—to see firsthand how wool is handled, and to assess the availability of any byproducts or wool-waste.

Colloquium (Mon 2 Dec, 19:00 ~ 21:00)

The colloquium is an open discussion format hosted by the participating makers and students aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in the HfG Karlsruhe. Together, we explore the realms of bio art and design, new materialism, post-humanism, more-than-human narratives, sustainability, and life cycles. Visitors are welcome to join both in-person and online.

Day 2 (Tue 3 Dec, 09:00 ~ 16:00)

During the workshop, we'll dive into techniques of dry and wet felting and experiment with biocomposite recipes, guided by Carolin Schelkle and Nina Havermans. Students will have the opportunity to explore these techniques and the combination of them, creating material samples. Expect a hands-on workshop, all about wool and ways of working with it.