BETWEEN LEAF AND SKIN – WEARABLE STORIES OF THE LIVING

Mainly Wednesdays, 10 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Within a collective framework, a space for artistic research emerges, exploring the relationships between plants, materials, bodies, and textile expression. Textile practice is understood as a process of connecting, translating, and storytelling. Plants are approached not merely as raw materials but as living forms of knowledge, communication, and relationality. The artistic project asks what we can learn from plants and how their structures, strategies, and histories can inspire new perspectives on textile processes and wearable forms.

The lines of leaves and skin, the veins of plants, and the structures of living membranes speak of growth, adaptation, and interconnectedness. Between leaf and skin, a conceptual space unfolds in which material is understood not only as a surface but also as a carrier of memory, transformation, and living histories.

At the core of the seminar lies the exploration of wearable textile forms as spaces between body, material, and environment. Textiles are understood as moving surfaces and extended body spaces. Through textile processes such as joining, layering, interlacing, and structuring, new forms of connection are tested.

A particular focus is the experimental exploration of the material lignin in collaboration with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU). As a naturally occurring plant polymer, lignin provides structural stability to wood and other plant tissues while offering promising opportunities for the development of sustainable materials. Through laboratory visits, exchanges with scientists, and a final exhibition, lignin will be explored from multiple perspectives, connecting artistic and scientific research.

The project is grounded in transdisciplinary collaboration between art, textiles, natural sciences, and craft. In collaboration with the leather workshop, techniques of material joining are explored and further developed. Textile and craft-based methods of assembly are examined in relation to the inherent qualities of the materials, opening new ways of understanding the interplay between materials, structures, and bodies.

This artistic project understands artistic practice as a process of listening, observing, and entering into meaningful relationships with materials, living systems, and one another.

The completion of the artistic project requires regular and active participation, the development of an artistic work, its presentation and the submission of digital documentation within four weeks following the presentation.

The artistic project takes place primarily on Wednesday mornings in VZA7 | 3rd floor | Textil Forschungsraum (Room 309). In addition, a workshop on Sat, Nov 14 in the Leather Workshop as well as a full-day Wednesday session including a laboratory visit in Tulln is planned (the date of Wed, 17 Nov may still be subject to minor changes until the end of August due to coordination with the cooperation partners).

The artistic project is open to all students.
Students in the teacher education programme are advised to complete this FOR-PHASE project seminar only after successfully completing the GO-PHASE.

The number of participants is limited. Depending on the needs of the participants, the artitic project will be offered in German or English.