Artists in Residence in Schools

In the context of the "Artists in Residence in Schools" project, we were invited to set up a workshop in the school of Oberhof. Postfossil‘s Claudia Heiniger and Christine Birkhoven used the residency to familiarise the pupils with postfossil thinking and design as a concept.

Together with the children, we went through an entire design process: from conceiving an idea to chosing materials and packaging. A key aspect of the process was that we viewed each step along the way through our special "sustainability glasses". The topic was chosen before the start of the residency: different eating traditions and food habits or: eating as the heart of a culture.

Our main aim was to involve the children in the design process. With this in mind, we got old and young working together in our "creative kitchen", making the most of our different ways of thinking and working. By experimenting with different materials and input from Postfossil, the children developed extraordinary ideas. The designers took these ideas to develop a product that looks very unusual at first sight: the "dish fork" (or „Schalengabel“ in German) leaves many things to the imagination.

The residency took place in the context of the "Kultur macht Schule" programme of the Canton of Aargau. The programme is supported by the Ernst Göhner foundation and the Schneider-Wülser foundation.

Cultural mediators Andrea Huser and Andrea Zielinski assisted Postfossil during the residency, which was documented in an online magazine (in German only)