As part of the exhibition Display. Sara Ouhaddou
How can craft, art and design engage in dialogue, inspire each other, and grow together? In Display, artist and designer Sara Ouhaddou explores the processes behind her many years of collaboration with craftspeople in Marrakech. As an extension and activation of the exhibition, the ifa Gallery Berlin invites you to an open textile workshop for 8 weeks. This workshop provides space to translate your own patterns and design ideas, inspired by fragments from the exhibition, into a personal “alphabet of forms”. Allowing you to experiment with fabrics, application techniques, and embroidery, ultimately contributing to a collective textile artwork.
The workshop welcomes participants of all ages—families, enthusiasts, or textile lovers—and is free to attend during the regular opening hours of the ifa Gallery Berlin. No prior experience is needed!
Opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 2–6 PM | Thursday, 2–8 PM from 20.11.2024 – 02.02.2025
Start: Tuesday, 19.11.2024, 5–7 PM
Before autumn’s vibrant colours fade into winter’s greys, we will capture them on fabric. In this two-hour workshop, we will lay the foundation for the collective textile project by dyeing cotton fabrics with plant-based dyes. Shades like privet, blackthorn, and turmeric will become the raw materials for our first textile collages, introducing the workshop’s “alphabet of forms.” What are your favourite shapes, and how can they be transferred and combined in fabric?
Threads: Thursday, 19.12.2024, 5–7 PM
Using the fabric and forms generated in the first workshop, we will now expand our techniques using thread across the surface of the textiles. We will dye natural yarns with winter plants such as spruce or fir and grow the collaborative textile artwork with sewing and embroidery to include another formal language.
Closing Event: Sunday, 26.01.2025, 3–5 PM
Can designed textiles be read like a text? At the end of the 8-week workshop, we will “read” the shapes and patterns left on the fabrics together. Over punch and biscuits, participants are invited to write short texts in response, translating, expanding, or crossing over the Display created in the workshop. Small textile notations will emerge from the collectively invented stories, which we will share with each other.
With:
Nadin Reschke, Artist
Nadin Reschke has been working with textiles for many years, using fabric as a sculptural material that carries collective history, identity, and personal experiences. She designs processes that bring people together, spark dialogue, and create spaces for social action.
Annika Niemann is an art mediator, curator for outreach and cultural agent for creative schools. She creates collaborative, experience-based projects that connect art institutions, educational centres, and public spaces, encouraging dialogue, shifting perspectives, and reimagining ideas.
