Heritage of patterns
Exhibition at gallery “Stichpunkt”
by the University Osnabrück, DE
01.05. – 30.06.2021

The foundation “Stiftung Mensch” operates in the historical building complex of “Altes Pastorat” in Meldorf/Schleswig-Holstein a Germany-wide unique Beiderwand Weaving Workshop. Part of the Weaving Workshop is a historical grown Heritage of patterns with komplex punchcards, historic looms, machinery and equipment as well as an archive of drawings and patterns. The production is run by team members with different handicaps. The production is based on historical originals.

Through the contact to workshop leader, Wolfgang Sternberg, arose the idea, to develop together with students new, timeless designs for the historical museum weaving mill. Already in previous semesters students developed designs, for example for a Bauhaus-exibition at  Tuchmacher Museum Bramsche, for the academic scarf of the University Osnabrück or for a social project in Sri Lanka. Wolfgang Sternberg had helped during the workshop-restructoring of the Textiles Department with the restoration of the punchcardjacquard at University Osnabrück. Now there was the opportunity for a further cooperation – a cultur-historical approach to Beidewand weaving on contemporary basis.

Repair works on the machinery recently enable the punching of card runnings in Meldorf. This created the opportunity for the cooperative project between the Beiderwand weaving workhop of Stiftung Mensch and the Textiles Department of University Osnabrück. Inspired by the historical motives, the restored technique and the originally intended museums practice, to develop new desigs in the workshop, the students get to work. Aim war, to develop timeless, geometric patterns, that could be punched into jacquardcard runnings with manageable effort. The complex historical punchcard runnings needs thousands of jacquardcards, having to be punched card by card and to be stitched to a running. Towards the practical implementation the task was to develop patterns, that could be realized in the workshop of Stiftung Mensch with about one- to twohundred jacquard cards.

The students aimed to an acess to the technique of Beiderwand weaving. They examined origin, use, development, materials and meaning of the historic weaving technique. On that basis followed the implementation of the designs in individual and collective designprocess of the seminar participants from handdrawn drafts, the editing in image processing programm and the pattern repeat to the realisation as fabric sample by digital handjacquard loom TC2 at the Textiles Department.

Beeing involved to the project hab been the textile students Canan Barcin, Jessica Kirschmann, Annika Klinkig, Anja Leshoff, Rieke Ohlsen, Sophia Schlimm, Heidrun Schneider, Zeynep Yaman und Beyza Yilmaz. The seminar was led bei textile designer and research associate of the Textiles Department, Lucia Schwalenberg.

The results of the cooperation project are shown in an exibition in the windowsgallery “Stichpunkt” of the Textiles Department from May to June 2021, Seminarstraße 33 in Osnabrück.

The project “Heritage of patterns” is an example for the realisation of creative contents in the study of Textiles during the Corona pandemic. The challenge was, despite to strictly acess restrictions to workshop spaces of the Textiles Department to enable the practical realisation of the designs and to achieve the goals of the seminar. Thanks to willing to go the extramile of the involved studetns and teaching stuff and careful monitoring the regulations suceeded the realisation of in overall almost 40 draftdesigns by the digitaljacquard of the department. A selection it so be seen in the exibition.

The Textiles Department of University Osnabrück offers the Bachelor Bildung, Erziehung, Unterricht as well as Master of Education programms. The progamms aims to educate future teachers, that are able to a wide scientific and creative discourse with the great diversity of textile culture. The Beiderwand project in cooperation with Stiftung Mensch connected a design task with questions of inclusion and cultural sustainability. Coincident the seminar builds a bridge between analogue and digital technologies concerning design and production of textiles.

Further informations:

Universität Osnabrück/Fachgebiet Textiles Gestalten,
Dipl. Journ./Dipl. Des. Lucia Schwalenberg: 0541-969-4219 / 05103-706424, lucia.schwalenberg@uni-osnabrueck.de

https://www.textil.uni-osnabrueck.de/stichpunkt.html