The workshop “Un-mining” kickstarted this years Summer School “Design Campus
” by the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dresden. The Design Campus summer program is a “School of Utopias”, a visionary design school set to explore complex problems, dream bold ideas, and collaboratively build new ways forward. Curated this year by Studio Makkink & Bey, aligning with their exhibition Waterschool at Schloss Hubertusburg.
The workshop ‘Un-mining‘ is premised on understanding material traces and speculating on the mining of raw materials and their ownership. This hands-on, research-based workshop focused on the raw materials used in porcelain production —specifically Kaolin, Quartz, and Feldspar. These materials, primarily Kaolin, are still mined in quarries near Schloss Hubertusburg where the workshop took place.
Participants all brought great energy and expertise, delved into the origins of Kaolin, tracing it’s material journey across time, location, and scale. As Kaolin is a scarce material, this raises critical questions about our management of planetary resource exhaustion. To whom or what does this scarce material belong? Can we heal these wounds in the landscape? Can we literally “un-mine”?
The participant visited the kaolin mine and created fantastic projects with this material. The results of these speculative questions and possible answers can still be seen in Hubertusburg at the Waterschool exhibition till the 13th of October.
Inspiration for exploration of material narratives
The “Un-Mining” workshop not only provided a platform for exploring sustainable design practices but also served as inspiration for the ongoing project “Terroir: Mapping Data Through Material in the Wild.” The workshop’s themes and methodologies could also contribute to the development of this project, as well as to the upcoming minor “Material Ecologies” at St. Joost School of Art & Design. These initiatives can build on the workshop’s exploration of material narratives and ecological contexts, further enriching our educational approach.
