Weaving Skin

Our skin is the first layer that marks a boundary to our immediate environment. Clothes can be seen as another boundary, as a second skin. In this workshop we will multifacetedly explore the topic of skin from tackling racial discrimination and politically significant aesthetics up to creating a piece of fabric on a loom.

Characteristics such as skin tone are aesthetic categories that extend into the political sphere through constructed and assigned attributions which have served to justify oppression of Black people and people of Colour in the course of history of culture and civilization.

Clothes can be seen as a further boundary, a second skin which fulfils technical and powerful social functions. Here, attributions and exclusions also take place via supposedly neutral but actually racialized notions of aesthetics in the intersection of garment, fabric and the wearer. In this workshop we will address these areas of skin in its political and aesthetic facets and translate it into an own artistic expression through weaving.

Weaving is an universal craft but what does it mean for practitioners who explore it from different positionings? Whether people have been constructed as a part of majority/ruling society or not determines inclusion, exclusion, representation, othering, discrimination or sense of belonging of an individual. Which differences can be sensed and thought of as a Black person, a person of Colour or white person weaving? This workshop will provide space to think, discuss and weave together. Participants may create a piece of fabric on a mechanical loom of the weaving workshop at UdK or with alternative weaving methods.

Schedule

Day 1

Forest day. Getting to know each other and introducing the workshop through methods of Erlebnispädagogik. Sharpening the senses for the immediate environment. Theoretical approach through reading a selected text of critical race studies. The forest will provide the setting for understanding, discussing and further collective explorations.

Day 2

Workshop day (weaving atelier of IBT)

Abstraction of the topic through an artistic approach considering thoughts and discussions from the previous day. Introduction to the key looms and different types of weaves paired with the question of artistic and historical expression of these weaves.

Day 3

Workshop day (weaving atelier of IBT)

Weaving. Further theoretical input, which is related to the political dimension of the topic.

Day 4

Workshop day (weaving atelier of IBT)

Weaving. Final presentation and closing round.

Prior application requirements

This course is aimed at people who are explicitly interested in the intersection of two fields that have been constructed separately of each other: weaving and social justice. Black people and people of Colour are welcome as well as white people. For white people knowledge on racism is wished to the extent that discrimination of other participants is not being relativized, questioned or exposed. These are basic requirements to ensure wellbeing of all participants and a convenient workflow in this workshop.

Knowledge requirements

Weaving knowledge is an advantage but not essential.

Teresa Fagbohoun is an associate professor at the Institute for Experimental Fashion and Textile Design at the Berlin University of the Arts. After training as a dressmaker, she studied fashion design at UdK Berlin and worked in the accessories sector in the German and Brazilian fashion industry for JOOP!, Projeto Sertões and Jess Vidal. After living in São Paulo for many years, she now lives in Berlin as a parent and works as a designer in freelance and educational contexts.
As part of her bag label Tabu, she researches the possibilities of contemporary fashion practice.
Craft as a method for self-efficacy, locating the individual within a global, justice-oriented production constellation or integrating local realities into professional practice are keywords that embrace her love for fashion and further develop its cultural and creative power.

https://design.udk-berlin.de/personen/teresa-fagbohoun