Insight into seminar
Cooperation project with Osnabrück University Sports
Upcycling of discarded sports equipment
The basis for the semester project is a cooperation with the Osnabrück University Sports Center. Balls, mats, jerseys and boxing gloves are regularly discarded during training. In order to use these resources sustainably, the aim is to find new uses for these sports materials through upcycling. The aim is to create prototypes and research the opportunities for serial production, e.g. by social enterprises. In addition, the Center for University Sports would like ideas for trophies, medals (e.g. with textile ribbons) or badges for sports competitions. A sports project for the upcycling of sports equipment and the product development of prototypes.
Photos: Lucia Schwalenberg
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Cooperation project with Cothmaker Museum Bramsche
The handloom collection at the Clothmaker Museum Bramsche
Handloom weaving is a central theme of the Clothmaker Museum Bramsche, to which a separate exhibition unit is to be dedicated as part of the redesign of the permanent exhibition. Until well into the 19th century, clothmakers worked on hand looms, which were replaced by weaving machines in the late 19th century. Until the 20th century, farms produced bed, table and body linen for their own use on heavy hand looms made of oak wood. While the textile industry is using ever more powerful looms, hand looms are still the main tools used in artistic and craft weaving in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement and Bauhaus weaving. The Clothmaker Museum has a collection of more than 20 hand looms. Most of them come from farms in the region, while some looms have been acquired from workshop liquidations. The most recent acquisition was in 2024 from the former Ter Meulen handloom weaving mill in Osnabrück. The handlooms are being restored in the museum depot on the grounds of the Hof Hasemann Foundation near Bramsche-Achmer. Numerous individual parts have to be matched. The documentation of the objects is incomplete. The aim of the project is to document the looms. The collection is to be published on the museum-digital platform and made accessible in the depot.
Photo: Lucia Schwalenberg
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Self-study
The Technology and Production module deals with the independent development, planning and implementation of textile technical tasks. The course content created as part of the new module regulations is designed as self-study with an accompanying colloquium. Self-study refers to a form of learning in which learners acquire knowledge alone or with the help of learning materials such as books or other sources. As part of the redesign of study programs, self-study is becoming increasingly important. This is due to the fact of a complex world in which independent understanding and action are prerequisites for overcoming global crises. Students presented their results in the form of a pop-up exhibition. For the teacher Alexandra Wilker, the students involved were successful in engaging in an open-ended process, setting priorities based on their interests and addressing their own gaps in choosing the task. As part of the self-study, the students discussed textile techniques such as spinning, dyeing, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving, dyeing, sewing, upcycling, tufting and felting. Both digital and analog technologies were used.
Photo: Theresa Veerkamp
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Cooperation workshop with the Fachverband ... textil ... e. V.
The theme “turning OLD into NEW” was the focus of a workshop at Textile Studies. In cooperation with the association ... textile... e. V., students learned through craft processes how an old T-shirt is turned into yarn. Under the guidance of former teacher Ruth Fiedler, new everyday items were then crocheted from the yarn. The didactic-methodological workshop gave the teacher training students an insight into their future work as teachers. Textiles are becoming a medium and provide practical and resource-saving suggestions for the later on own teaching.
Photo: Swantje Möhlmann
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Exhibition projekct DRESSED
In collaboration with Varusschlacht Osnabrücker Land gGmbH – Museum and Park Kalkriese
Under the new curriculum for the bachelor’s program, students spend two semesters exploring subject-specific topics in the module “Research and Presentation in Academic Contexts.” At the end of the first part, students work individually or in groups to develop an exhibition concept or, alternatively, a publication concept. In the second part, students create exhibits, exhibition and object texts, and handle public relations, editing, or proofreading. Finally, they participate in setting up and taking down the exhibition.
In the summer semester of 2023, Heidrun Derks, director of Varusschlacht Osnabrücker Land gGmbH – Museum und Park Kalkriese, approached us to ask whether we would be interested in supporting the museum in planning and executing the special exhibition DRESSED, which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2024 on the first floor of the visitor center. Located north of Osnabrück, the museum is one of the newer museums in Lower Saxony. It sits on a site bearing the traces of a battlefield between the Romans and the Germanic tribes, known as the Battle of Varus. Archaeological excavations continue on the site to this day. Among the most spectacular finds is the iron face mask of a Roman helmet.
The exhibition, planned under the direction of Bärbel Schmidt, focused on the topic of Roman clothing during the reign of Augustus. At the same time, the exhibition was intended to draw a connection to the significance of clothing and sustainability today. After an orientation period, students developed an initial concept. The next step involved fleshing out the chosen themes with content, drafting exhibition texts and object labels, reviewing exhibits, and helping to set up the exhibition.
The module enables students to take an active, research-based approach to curatorial and design work. They acquire key skills that will be helpful for their future careers as teachers. For the Textile Design program, the benefits include broader profile building, increased visibility in education policy circles, and public engagement.
Photo: Yannick Duda
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Cooperation project with the Botanical Garden
Botanical colors
Imparting expert knowledge about the dyeing of textiles was the goal of the seminar "Botanische Farben"(Botanical Colors) of Textile Studies in cooperation with the Botanical Garden of the University of Osnabrück. The students created their own bed of dye plants in an open area of the Botanical Garden. They were accompanied by staff members of the Botanical Garden and teachers of textile studies. Special thanks go to Prof. Dr. Nico Dissmeyer, Yvonne Bouillon, Claudia Grabowski-Hüsing and Wilhelm Feldkötter at the Botanical Garden. The seminar schedule was based on the conditions of plant growth, flowering phases, watering and weeding schedule, and weather.
"From the seminar reflections of the participants: "Particularly exciting was the meeting in the Botanical Garden, where we conducted dyeing experiments. Together, the flowers of the various dye plants were harvested and then used for dyeing. Dyeing was done on both fabric and paper. We dyed with a hammer, with our hands and with powder. In addition, soda, soda ash and lemon were used. I was enthusiastic about the execution, the methods as well as the contents of the seminar. It was especially impressive for me to learn about the versatility of dye plants and to be able to experiment with them." Catherine Hildebrandt.
Photo: Bärbel Schmidt
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From alpha for avocado to omega for onion skin
Workshop plant dyeing with Anne Hederer
The colors of nature was the title of a workshop on plant dyeing with Anne Hederer, textile designer and workshop leader at the Weißensee School of Art in Berlin. In four intensive days, students experimented with plants such as walnut, mallow, coneflower or birch in different dyeing processes. First of all, plants had to be harvested from the specially created dyeing plant bed in the Botanical Garden of the University of Osnabrück. Anne Hederer expanded the harvest from the botanical garden for the workshop with a treasure chest full of plant dyes. This resulted in deep reds from madder, delicate nudes from avocado, bright yellows from coneflower or birch, warm browns from walnut and delicate tones from tagetes. Even black, the most difficult of all colorings, succeeded in the experiment. Anne Hederer systematically introduced the students to the basics of cold and warm dyeing, bundle dying and shibori techniques with fascinating results. The series of experiments had to be recorded in dyeing diaries and measurement series.
Photo: Lucia Schwalenberg
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Puppet Theater
What Does Today’s Kasperle Wear?
The fundamentals of puppet theater and its unique characteristics formed the theoretical introduction to the seminar “What Does Today's Kasperle Wear?” led by Mareike Alexander. In addition to the history of puppet theater, the seminar explored performance possibilities and potential applications in school classrooms. Florian Rzepkowski, director of the Osnabrück Puppet Theater, participated in one of the sessions online and answered the students' questions. The basis for the designs were short, self-written stories for which characters and images were to be created, allowing students to experience the process of puppet theater from the initial idea, through the design phase, to a finished costume design. The result showcased a wide variety of characters, including rod puppets, hand puppets, and marionettes made from various materials.
Photo: Florian Rzepkowski
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Beiderwand patterns
Textile students develop fabrics for the historic Beidewandweberei in Meldorf
The Stiftung Mensch operates a double-wall loom workshop at the Altes Pastorat in Meldorf that is unique in Germany. An integral part of the workshop is a historically accumulated pattern collection featuring complex Jacquard card sequences, historic looms, machines, and tools, as well as an archive of fabric drawings and fabric samples. The workshop is operated by the Stiftung Mensch with employees with disabilities. Production is based on historical models. Through contact with the workshop director, Wolfgang Sternberg, the idea arose to collaborate with students to create new, timeless designs for the historic museum weaving workshop. In previous semesters, students had already developed designs, for example for a Bauhaus exhibition at the Tuchmacher Museum in Bramsche, for the academic scarf of the University of Osnabrück, or for a social project in Sri Lanka. As part of the workshop restructuring in Textile Studies, Wolfgang Sternberg had assisted with the restoration of the department’s own punch-card Jacquard loom. Now the opportunity arose for further collaboration—a cultural-historical approach to the Beiderwand weaving mill on a contemporary basis.
Recent restoration work on the looms has made it possible to weave new tapestries in Meldorf. This opened the door to a collaborative project between the Beiderwand Weaving Workshop of the Stiftung Mensch and the Department of Textile Studies at the University of Osnabrück. Inspired by the historical motifs, the restored technology, and the museum’s original practice of developing new patterns in the workshop, the students set to work. The goal was to develop timeless, geometric patterns that could be translated into Jacquard card runs with manageable effort. The elaborate historical card runs require thousands of Jacquard cards, which must be punched card by card and sewn together to form a run. For practical implementation, patterns were to be developed that could be produced using one to two hundred Jacquard cards in the Stiftung Mensch workshop.
Photo: Lucia Schwalenberg
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