Online: Drawing at the Nature Lab

The workshop is intended to provide an intensive study of the plant world. The participants will gather detailed knowledge about natural forms and develop their artistry by playing with translation and abstraction.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this course will be facilitated online using a mixture of daily live-sessions and guided tasks to be completed.

The starting point is formed by the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt.

At the end of the 19th century, Blossfeldt began to build up an extensive archive of plant photographs, which served as a model for drawing exercises in the Unterrichtsanstalt des Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseums. In this way, he wanted to awaken a sense of nature's treasure trove of forms and, with his strictly composed photographs, shaped a pictorial world of "archetypical forms".

How can we trace this view artistically today? 

The in-depth exploration of the pictorial possibilities offered by Blossfeldt is interchanged with one' s discoveries on the doorstep. Thehe workshop focuses on the creative process of form-finding as observations are progressively simplified. With the aid of various drawing experiments, participants will record plant structures and create their collection of shapes. Through eyes and hands, they will experience how drawing provides an embodied understanding.

The comprehensive inventory should further transform into an artistic investigation where the participants will visualize their interpretation of the plant world.

The course participants will meet online and will be coached individually in one-on-one consultations. Afterward, everyone will receive a printed postcard collection with selected works by all participants.

SCHEDULE

Day 1

• General introduction
• Field research on plants in the environment 
• Drawing of collected plant parts
• Group Consultation

Day 2 

• Introduction to Karl Blossfeldt
• Drawing from Blossfeldt's photographs
• Group Consultation

Day 3

• Further input from art history
• Developing your project
• Individual consultations 

Day 4 

• Individual work and individual consultations 

Day 5 

• Individual work
• Individual consultations
• Final group presentation

Kerstin Hille studied communication design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee and the Facultad de Bellas Artes Salamanca (Spain). Since 2001 she has worked as a freelance draughtswoman, illustrator and graphic designer in Berlin. Amongst others she did scientific illustrations for the Natural History Museum in Berlin. A further focus of her work lies in the field of printmaking. After a five-year teaching position in drawing at the Graphic Design School in Anklam/Greifswald, she has been head of the Laboratory for Drawing at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2013.

www.kerstinhille.de

Oliver Thie draws to make the visible recognizable. In 2012, he graduated from Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee. Since then he has been researching the relevance of hand drawing as a tool of knowledge in cooperation projects with scientists. In 2018 he conserved the shadows of minerals in the Temporary Object Laboratory at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin. In 2016 he accompanied a biological expedition through the USA to study the social behaviour of aphids. From 2014 to 2016 he was artist in residence at the Natural History Museum Berlin. In a public drawing laboratory he researched microstructures on the Hawaiian cave planthopper (an insect). His works have already been exhibited in the Berlin galleries Stella A and Galerie Parterre as well as in the Kunstverein Neukölln.

www.oliverthie.de