Post-Vandalism Garment

In this course we search the streets of Berlin for dicarded garments, thrown on the sidewalks and becoming trash the second they hit the floor. We will pick up some pieces, clean and repurpose them in public space and make a video of it.

In this course we search the streets of berlin for dicarded garments, thrown on the sidewalks and becoming trash the second they hit the floor. We will pick up some pieces, clean and repurpose them, becoming installations, sculptures or acts of vandalism in public space. The aim is to make a video of any length of the process or the result.

As we move through the city, we tend to overlook the trampled heaps of worn-out clothing on the sidewalk, undergoing a sudden devaluation by the context of the street, having mostly traveled across the globe and having accompanied the body of the previous owner during many moments. The biographies of the textiles are long and unmistakable traces tell of their path.

In this seminar I would like to revive the ambiguity of clothing as performative culture, second skin, loved or unnoticed, cause of categorization, decoration and necessity, smelling and tactile objects without using worn-out stereotypes that always live in these everyday objects. The urban space is thought of here as a library, study, as a backdrop and studio, as a political place, a space for togetherness and the place where society shows itself. We create new images in textile sculptures/installation arrangements in urban spaces and fleeting rearrangements. The textile material and the street are being repurposed and upgraded through this act of post-vandalism.

Course leader

Johanna Schraut.