Nadine Göpfert

With a strong focus on training the intuitive, creative impulse, the course Experimental Design opens up a space for students to work in a procedural manner, to research, explore and experiment. Through open-minded collection, observation and experimentation, students can enter into an intense dialogue with materials, the environment and everyday phenomena, which becomes the basis for the development of innovative, sustainable and forward-thinking designs, concepts and perspectives on textile materials.

In addition to interdisciplinary exchange, the course focuses on an ongoing open and active dialogue, in order to formulate critical questions and to propose and debate new design solutions. Students are invited to reflect on the context, positioning and relevance of their work on both a scientific as well as on an aesthetical-artistic level. They are specifically encouraged to raise their awareness of contemporary social circumstances and socio-cultural tendencies.

In addition to individual designs and creative concepts by students, the observations and findings from ongoing material experiments and socio-cultural research will manifest themselves in the development of a Library for Social Textile Studies and an Archive for Intuitive Material Studies.