“The voice of things becomes the voice of the charcoal speaking”

Discover artistic charcoal’s production, material agency, and the site-specific,
performative potential of drawing on paper and beyond. The course
includes a meeting at frontviews/HAUNT and Florian Wüst’s film lecture on
the cultural history of coal.

“The voice of things becomes the voice of charcoal speaking”This workshop offers an experimental approach to charcoal as an artistic medium and invites participants to explore the interplay of material research, resourceawareness, and artistic gesture. Starting from the self-production of charcoal - wood transformed through pyrolysis into almost pure carbon - we rediscover one ofhumanity’s oldest drawing materials as a living, resistant matter between permanence and fragility.

Linked to the Summer University theme ENOUGH, the workshop asks what “enough” means in relation to material use, artistic choices, and ecological responsibility. How can deliberate reduction open new intensity? In a time shaped by overuse of resources, global fires, and CO2 emissions, working with charcoal gains aesthetic, ecological, and political urgency.

Practical phases - charring wood, drawing, trace-making, and material exploration - are combined with shared reflections on sustainability, material ethics, and artistic responsibility. Limitation is approached not as restriction but as a starting point for focused work, quiet gestures, and powerful reduction.

Inspired by Francis Ponge’s "Le parti pris des choses" the workshop turns toward the“speaking” of things: their surfaces, their language, their quiet autonomy. Charcoal becomes not just a tool but a speaking material that carries its history, smell, and color into hands and onto walls. It is trace-bearer, witness, medium, and symbol of transformation and finitude.

The aim is to understand charcoal not only as medium but as attitude: a form of “vibrant matter” (Jane Bennett) that initiates dialogue with space, time, and body. Berlin’s urban landscape will be included through site-specific interventions such as collecting wood to char, mark-making, and performative trace-work with the city’s trees.

Within this Summer University format, Florian Wüst, Berlin-based filmmaker and artist, will present a curated selection of films exploring the topic of coal and history of energy.

Schedule

Monday
10-13 Introduction, Orientation and Welcome Session
14-17 Uhr Florian Wüst, Berlin-based filmmaker and artist, will present a curated selection of films exploring the topic of coal and history of energy.

Tuesday
10-17 Uhr
Charcoal making, Brandenburg Studio open air working collecting material for carbonization and burning charcoal for each participant

Wednesday
10-13 and 14-17
Individual Working with charcoal on large format paper

Thursday
10-17 Uhr
Visiting frontviews /HAUNT - talking to artists and curators of the collective Participants working site-specifcly at the courtyard frontviews/HAUNT

Friday
10-17 Uhr
Working with charcoal and final presentation

Handout with selected text excerpts on theory and practice for optional reading will be provided.
Course language is optional in Englisch, German or both.

Ulrike Mohr is a visual artist who lives and works in Berlin. Working directly from materials such as wood, charcoal, salt, water, and stone, she develops sculptural and drawing-based practices in close relation to the history and context of each site. Her conceptual works move between sculpture, drawing, installation, and spatial interventions, and are presented internationally in numerous exhibitions and biennials, including the 5th Berlin Biennale and the Momentum Nordic Biennial, as well as in public space. She has realized several public art projects and undertaken international residencies, most recently at the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale in Norway in 2024, and is the recipient of several awards.

Since 2021 she has taught at the Institute of Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), where she held a guest lectureship in 2025. In her teaching, she connects traditional, practice-based knowledge of charcoal burning with contemporary artistic production. Material, process, site-specificity, and reflection create a direct link between craft-based practice and artistic research.

Mohr also initiates and directs the interdisciplinary collaborative art project WECHSELRAUM (since 2015) and is part of the Frontviews Collective Berlin, HAUNT — a center for urban ecology and an exhibition space dedicated to experimental art and critical discourse.

Website: www.ulrikemohr.de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ulrikemohr/Visiting
Berlins art collective frontviews at HAUNT: https://www.frontviews.de/ 
Filmlecture by berlin based artist Florian Wüst https://werkleitz.de/personen/florian-wuest