Recycling materials and cultural heritage
Discovering Cultural Heritage and Nature through Clothing and Fashion
Recommended for
Women with migrant or refugee background
Duration and phases
4 sessions + a blended part that you can organise in 3 or 4 days
Number of participants
Between 5 and 12 persons
Part 1: Blended part and Introduction
Nature objects and stories
Objectives
1. Introduction of the project and the trainers of the project.
2. Ice-breaking activity to get to know each other and build trust.
3. Share stories that are meaningful for the whole group, record them.
Duration
Blended part + 2 hours in the workshop
Materials needed
- Materials are collected at home, participants can also take photos of objects or find images on the Internet.
- One can think of some soft drinks and little snacks to share.
1. The workshop begins with a blended part:
One week before the workshop, tell your participants to bring a natural object (or a photo of it) that you associate with your birthplace or family traditions. It can be plants, roots, spices, flowers, fruits, vegetables etc. This object can have a healing effect or remind you of a story from your childhood.
The organisers/facilitators should also bring various natural objects with a personal connection and/or to introduce other projects that characterised the team of facilitators.
2. All objects, which were brought by the group members and the trainers, are displayed on a table..
3. A participant introduces herself and her object (I brought...). Then she chooses an object on the table that she would like to know more about (I would like to know more about this...). This way, the next participant who owns this object can introduce herself and her object.
Part 2 : Discovery
Bringing together exhibition experiences to enhance creativity
Objectives
1. Learn to reflect, to be inspired by images and to transform obtained knowledge and impression into unusual patterns under supervision of artists
2. Share stories and cloth patterns that are meaningful for individuals, record stories and reflect on memories.
3. Come up with an idea of a final object the group would like to work all together inspired by the workshops.
Duration
2 hours/each exhibition visit
Materials needed
- Travel tickets
- Museum tickets
- Colourful Pencils, Paper
This part can be covered during several or at least two visiting workshops in a museum. The idea is to bring together two or more discovery experiences, may it be an exhibition visit, or an excursion, and create something out of the encounter of two universes.
Workshops includes exhibition tours as well as creative exercises depending on what type of exhibition you visit. It is highly recommended that the trainer gets help from a museum worker/ use audio guide or familiarise him/herself with the works at the exhibition and its highlights before the workshop. Focus then goes to the areas that fit the best to the topic workshop.
1st visit : Fashion exhibition in the Berlinische Galerie
1. Prepare your visit and make your guided tour of the exhibition.
2. Task to give to the partipants: "Draw an item of clothing that you would like to put on (like to wear) or that tells something about you. Then present the drawings and stories."
2nd visit: Landscapes and stories in the Berlinische Galerie
1. Visit the exhibition. Focus on some paintings. "We are in front of a painting that represents a landscape. Think of associations that you have when looking at the painting."
2. "Close your eyes for a few minutes and think of a landscape that gives you comfort and strength. Perhaps it is a landscape from your childhood. A landscape that exists, or no longer exists, or could exist in the future. Imagine details of what it might look like."
3. Tell your participants to try to reproduce this landscape in drawing
4. Form pairs. One person from the pair starts and tells what she has drawn. Her partner asks questions about the drawing. If an element is mentioned that has not yet been drawn, it is added with a red pencil.
5. After 5 minutes, the pairs can change roles
Part 3 : Creation
Bringing Together Clothes and Landscapes
1. Show your participants images of landscapes and clothes. They can be postcards, newspaper cuts of photos previously taken during the exhibition visit.
2. Ask your participants to match landscapes or pieces of clothes. Try a few examples together.
3. Now take the previously drawn landscapes that give them strength and comfort. "Which clothes would fit the landscape? Bring landscapes and clothes together."
4. Ask them to explain their choices.
5. To reinforce and enrich each other through co-working give a piece of A5 paper to each participant. Tell them to start to drawing a landscape trying to use the simplest forms.
6. In 5 min each of them shall pass her drawing to a neighbour on the left and receive a landscape from the person sitting on her right. Now the task is to complete the neighbour’s landscape.
7. When all the participants completed the circle, the landscapes can be pinned onto a large board. Try to create together a story based on this common landscape and try to think of a cloth that would fit it.
8. You can also draw these cloths on A5 papers, cut them out and stick them in the landscapes.
Objectives
1. Enhancing creativity
2. Enhancing independent work and improving skills in photo making
3. Improving writing skills
4. Acquire analytical skills
Duration
30 minutes
Materials needed
- Several A5 cards with pictures of landscapes and pictures of clothes for inspiration. They can be futuristic, utopian, fictional or real landscapes, landscapes from different continents, fairytale landscapes, etc.
- Pencils, A5 paper
Part 4 : Blended part and creation
If I were a flower...
Be inspired by nature around you
Objectives
1. Encouraging independent discovery activities and outside activities in the nature
Duration
From a few days to one month for the blended part and 2 hours for the workshop
Materials needed
- Dried plants and natural objects that women collected during the summer break.
- Books with photographs and images of natural objects, images inspired by natural objects
- Colourful pencils, black felt pens, transparent paper A4
- Photo printing services (B/W)
1. Tell your participants to collect flowers, plants, nature objects that possess a special meaning for them or revoke memories. Plants can be collected in own garden or anywhere, where women are used to going.
2. When you meet again, ask them to share with the group thir summer collections. They can also tell stories about them if they wish to.
3. Tell your participants to take photos of each other standing in different postures. Photos should represent the whole body.
4. Prints the photos and gives them back to the participants. Each of them shall get at least of 2 photos. In case a participant decided to try more postures, you can print more photos.
5. Participant then shall decorate at least one of the images using natural materials and another one applying a collage technique.
You can also use transparent or transfer paper to copy ornamenets then cut them out and glue on the photos.
