Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
In the exhibition “Weaving the Cosmos” at Gropius Bau in Berlin (April 29 – August 15, 2021), Dutch artist Hella Jongerius explores the cultural significance of weaving beyond materials and technique, and links it to the challenges of our time, such as sustainable production, social responsibility and spirituality.
Artist and designer Hella Jongerius’s research into ancient cultural technologies and her interest in textiles over the past 25 years have led her to explore the themes of ecological responsibility and sustainability. The exhibition ‘Weaving the Cosmos’ (Kosmos weben), conceived in collaboration with his design studio Jongeriuslab, reflects the outcome of these questions.
In November 2020, the artist moved her studio to the Gropius Bau, thereby integrating her artistic creation process with the location.
“What’s beautiful is that she’s not just an artistic mind or a designer who thinks about finished, closed projects, but she really focuses on process, learning, research and the community aspect,” explains curator Clara Meister.
Dancing a Yarn, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Some of the exhibits are in fact interactive. A case in point is Dancing a Yarn . Visitors are invited to activate machines and tools specially developed by the Jongeriuslab to weave a rope collaboratively. This approach echoes the practices of the pre-industrial era, when textile production was rooted in social structures. People worked with many hands on the same product, which was imbued with stories and conversations. There was also a belief in the healing power of collective craftsmanship, bringing a spiritual aspect to the technique.
“Perhaps each of us is a thread, weaving together an image of our society,” says Clara Meister.
The ropes woven by visitors are then assembled into ladders, which will in turn be placed on the exterior of the Gropius Bau building, completing the loop according to the curator:
“For us, it was essential that the institution also connect with the outside world.
What did the exhibition’s themes inspire? To answer this question, visitors shared their impressions with us. Here they are, in the form of a conversation.
Özgül Demiralp: How can traditional craftsmanship be used to create a sustainable future?
Clara Meister (curator): All the textiles in the exhibition are leftovers from her own industrial pieces, materials that could no longer be used, but which have now found another form. As an industrial designer, it’s very important to consider what happens to the material you create. Jongerius and his team have developed a loom for high-volume production. in 3D. They work there every day at the Gropius Bau and continue their research. Pliable Architecture deals with the innovative potential of weaving and sustainability. It uses photovoltaic strips and energy-conducting wires to activate them and set these structures in motion. The idea is not only to bring used materials back into the production cycle, but also to think about how weaving itself can be a technique that promotes sustainability and creates energy.
Pliable Architecture, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Emilie Langlade (journalist and co-founder of Positive Lab): If you go back to the slightly artisanal aspect of weaving, you can be innovative. What I found very powerful was his move towards 3D weaving, towards weaving recycled materials, towards weaving photovoltaic cells. This is pure technological innovation. The way you weave these shapes that could, for example, become partitions for homes that could be used in architecture, whereas you’re basing yourself on an ancient technique. She has made it evolve in a sustainable way, not through war machines. The looms of today’s textile industry are horribly efficient. Here, we return to the imperfect side of craftsmanship in an exploration that takes us into the future. It’s a sustainable approach. We’re not going to throw away our ancient knowledge, but rather re-appropriate it.
Pliable Architecture, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Shirley Collet (founder of Agence Paris Berlin and minimalist life coach): This approach completely resonates with me because in nature there’s no waste. Fungi and parasites such as termites and ants can feed on dead wood. Everything can be recycled, and we’ve missed out on that. It is necessary to return to this ecosystem and regain this virtuous state to stop pumping resources that are not eternal. We have to realize that what is thrown away has a value and be responsible for it. As well as the materials she uses, there’s this ingenious wall covered in huge white plastics and this beautiful black rope that weaves it all together. This work – which is monumental – has a majestic feel to it. She’s rubbing our plastic consumption in our faces. It’s clear that this is a common plastic, a packaging material found everywhere.
Woven Systems, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Özgül Demiralp: Hella Jongerius uses weaving as a symbol to reflect on systems, layers and connections. What does this mean to you?
Fanny Herbin (teacher): I’ve been weaving Brazilian bracelets since I was a little girl, but the technique is very individual, because it’s smaller. I’d never thought about larger weaves, so it was interesting to think that back then we were all weaving together on one big machine, that it wasn’t industrialized. Realizing this made me a little sad. Weaving used to be a collective act, but now it’s industrialized. Perhaps there’s less room for madness or creativity.
Emilie Langlade: Weaving took me back to my childhood, because my mother used to weave. She had a large two-metre wooden loom. I love this artisanal side, a traditional art that women have perpetuated to a great extent. There’s something very meticulous about this craft, very meditative and very mechanical. I appreciate this use of a large machine – a loom is big, it makes noise, there’s wood and flaps, it’s still a machine – by women to create works of art. Weaving connected me to women’s ancestral knowledge and their use of the bond.
Shirley Collet: The whole symbolism of weaving is the link, the collective. A thread in itself does nothing. On the other hand, a thread woven with others makes sense, because it forms a pattern, is more resistant, visible.
Özgül Demiralp: The artist questions the hierarchy created by man and our position towards animals, notably in the installation Angry Animals.
Angry Animals, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Shirley Collet: This work is very powerful, and so is the title. There’s a real beauty in these objects. I was impressed by his technique of glazing the sculptures, these heads are fascinating – you can see an expression of tension, of anger. Animals can be angry, like all living things.
Clara Meister: Helle Jongerius often worked with animals, and always said they were kind and gentle, but these sculptures ended up being very angry. In many of her works, she criticizes and questions the hierarchy created by man and the way we use these living beings – hence the anger. When you look at their faces, you really realize how they feel about us humans.
Angry Animals, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Emilie Langlade: Hella Jongerius invites people to break out of hierarchical systems, and stop thinking that human beings are above the animal kingdom, above the plant kingdom. We respect living things, and move away from a system of domination by one party over another, or from a binary system, with man superior to nature, man superior to woman. I found these animals very moving. It’s great to provoke this through objects, as a reminder of how to take care of living things.
Fanny Herbin: The artist doesn’t want to create scales between men and women, objects, plants, animals, elements perhaps. With these sculptures, I believe she is denouncing what is done to animals in most cultures, which kill and eat them. I was very touched. I’m a vegetarian, and I try to be vegan as much as possible, but it’s not always easy. I think about it a lot and often talk about it at the dinner table with friends. I thought it was a beautiful installation.
Özgül Demiralp: Hella Jongerius also explores the healing function that objects can have.
Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Fanny Herbin, teacher: In her work Guardian Dolls, she refers to the link between humans and objects, and the comfort they can provide. The healing aspect made me smile. I am 25 years old, I still have the cuddly toy I received at birth. My fiancé thinks it’s ridiculous. It’s horrible and looks like a witch’s amulet, but it’s something I use when I’m sick. I said to myself that it’s true that we do put a lot of virtue and importance on certain objects.
Emilie Langlade: For me, the healing function is really about making the link visible. When you see all those woven strings and braids, it’s really beautiful. We discover harmony together, and feel that one alone can do nothing. A woven rope is so multiple, so different. It’s much richer in form, and I hope that’s what healing through connection is all about. Locating oneself, repositioning oneself in the system, in a system larger than oneself, can also be an element of healing. Retouching the globality of the elements around us, of this cosmos, this universe, this planet.
Woven Window, Gropius Bau / Hella Jongerius, VG Bild-Kunst 2021, photo: Laura Fiorio
Özgül Demiralp: What kind of future is the artist weaving?
Emilie Langlade: I’d like to see more artists and designers like Hella Jongerius calling on the industry to change. It proposes a sustainable approach to the use of used materials, and promotes a recycling cycle. It integrates the circular economy with technological innovation, but with this aesthetic and useful aspect as well. I tell myself it’s the junction of art, innovation, the symbolic and the useful. It’s fantastic to be part of a recycling cycle. That’s the future. I’d love the industry to be inspired by it, and I think it’s revolutionary. I think she’s a pioneer in her approach.
