Visual by Evey Kwong

Material Culture from
the Prehistory

A year long foraging and reconnecting with the earth.

futurprimitiv:
how it all began

(Non)-artefacts made with both soft and hard materials.

Carlos Fontales

How i got started with fibre arts, was how i started to understand that every object made has a hidden story. But how do we recover these stories and attempt a new continuity?

Working within a craft tradition means having respect for, rather than strict adherence to, the techniques and lore that form that tradition. A tradition that is not changing and renewing itself becomes stagnant and dies, and it is hoped that by taking this first step in learning the craft tradition, this will not only persuade oneself to re-evaluate the traditional baskets, but to work with craftsmen from other disciplines to find new meaning.

I began the process with field research with an observation of the ways of making and using objects from the region. Popular basketry, in other words, that which is done traditionally by fishermen, farmers, cattlemen, people, for whom the making of the baskets or similar things is just one of the many activities that they do in their daily life. The inherited knowledge were shared by Carlos, from his long stays with the old people, who lived in the remotest places of the Spanish geography. These inheritors of knowledge, are now, with hardly any generational renewal, died with them. 

Such folk experience enables a reflection on the cultural identity of the region, and i intend to work for the next years on crossing the traditional techniques for gradual and reasonable cultural development.

Learning to weave with Esparto grass and rush.

Dahlhausen & Lichtenfels:
Where it All Began

BRAVE NEW ALPS:
DESIGNING FOR COMMONS

Placemaking workshop, 2018
⭢ Stilfs, IT

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Together with the Master students of Eco-Social Design of the Free University of Bolzano and Bianca Elzenbaumer from the Brave New Alps, we made a land survey in a commune, Stilfs, a two-hour drive away from Bolzano. Our walk was accompanied by a resident smallholder herbal farmer, Siegfried Platzer. Siegfried told of the past, present and prospects of the area, giving us an insight into the problems faced by Alpine states*, and its submission to monoculture practices.

He explained instead, in order to avoid high production costs, the lower land area could be equally cultivated. The soil has been healthily cultivated thanks to his aged-old ancestral knowledge maintaining the soil biodiversity. Furthermore, the plantation is situated in the low wind speed area. As the wind plays an important factor for the soil (humus), it helps reduce the removal of the surface layer of the soil or can deposit a mantle sediment on it, resulting in high vegetation.

How do we solve or create new economies, other than depending on monoculture? How can a fallow land be developed into liveable space? How can one use the partially fallow land above the village in a sustainable and well-oriented way? 

* The problem of Alpine States: The agricultural production is hampered by natural obstacles, leading to increased workloads, fewer possibilities of mechanisation, a greater need for special machinery, bad accessibility and limited possibilities of operational extension and production alternatives.

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This event is organized in conjunction with the yearly conference By Design or by Disaster.

Hma’ Meri: Flowers of the Spirit

Due to oil palm plantation development, the natural resources depleted, keeping the sea out, dooming their mudflats, bakau and fishing grounds. Today there are only a handful of wild places on the entire island. Yet, the Orang Asli are neither against the plantation or development in principle, for it has given them many modern facilities and helped educate their children. In exchange of these modernisation, many of the Aslian’s customs and traditional handcrafts are either forgotten, or lost.

Alarmed by the declining interest in pandanus weaving (anyam hake’), I started my learning, research and documentation via my visits to some of the remaining villages which still practices the handcraftmaking for living.

One of the most prominent weavings from this native is anyam dawud, in which nipah leaflets (mangrove palm) are woven as decorations for spirit houses, altars, homes and even jo-oh dancers. These are similar to leaf-weavings of other Orang Asli and indigenous peoples in many parts of the world. Occasionally mistaken as similar to Japanese origami (which is the craft of folding paper), anyam dawud however relies on a combination of weaving and plaiting strips of nipah leaflets.

Another form of weaving is anyam dawud in which nipah leaflets are woven as decorations for spirit houses, altars, homes and even jo-oh dancers. These are similar to leaf-weavings of other Orang Asli and indigenous peoples in many parts of the world. Occasionally mistaken as similar to Japanese origami (which is the craft of folding paper), anyam dawud however relies on a combination of weaving and plaiting strips of nipah leaflets. Nipah is easier to weave compared to hake’ as it requires almost no processing, but it is very difficult to extract from the nipah groves which only thrive in muddy river estuaries. As there are no nipah groves within our village, they have to travel via motorcycle to Sungai Kuang and beyond for their supplies.

According to Gomo’ Che’ Yah Unyan and Maznah Unyan, the plants and animals that they weave in nipah feature in ancestor’ stories or came to them in their dreams. Occasionally they’ll create new designs or modify existing ones. Common ornaments include flowers, birds, fishes, prawns and horseshoe crabs. There are also special ornaments like the tombak muyang (ancestor’s spear) and ‘spirit flowers’ which are only woven for ritual occasions.

With the fascination for local materials, i came to learn about the late Anne Reichert's experimental archeological work which consists of reconstruction of Neolithic and Bronze Age textile materials, such as plant fibres and barks from the trees (Birch, beech, oak, spruce, lime, poplar, wild cherry, etc.), grasses, sedges, rushes and plant fibres (nettle, flax, hemp).

Experiments were carried out on the production technique of different braids from shore settlements on Lake Constance, Federsee and on the Swiss Lakes, experiments on the so-called "rheumatic sole" of Zug (CH) and on the carrying method of the Ötzi mat and his shoes. 

The museum features one of the largest remnants of prehistoric lake dwelling settlements of both the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, and the hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic.

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Le Laténium, Neuchâtel

Placemaking workshop, 2018
⭢ Uckermark, DE

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During the 2-day residence, locals, new arrivals and visitors to the village gathered at a workshop, initiated by design researcher and placemaker Jan Lindenberg in Gerswalde. Actors such as architects, designers, artists and craftsmakers were placed in groups for a collaborative effort to find new ideas in enabling a socio-cultural craft-based platform, both for making things and making things happen. Among other agendas were the possible effective measures taken to communicate externally (publicising via word of mouth) and internally (formation of design language) within the agendas and sensitivities of the locals. An inclusive approach was taken in consideration of building rapport with the locals to encourage participation.

In the coming year, a project and gallery space Löwen.haus will be launched with the concept of an open workshop and a meeting place in mind. Long-time residents and visitors to the village have the opportunity here to explore, develop and pass on their creative potential.

Together with designers, artists, farmers and technologists, local, traditional craft and everyday techniques could be discovered and revived via workshops and courses. This initiation will be developed further with new digital techniques and production techniques from other cultures.

A SELF-SUFFICIENT EXPERIMENT

A year long foraging and reconnecting with the earth.

By acknowledging the impact of late capitalism, we should look into reclaiming skills and developing methods for sustainable co-existence, including how to feed, shelter, and heal ourselves with the plants, animals and materials occurring naturally in our bioregions. It is also said to include the dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus and infrastructure of civilisation. 

The hands that reap is about learning the hunter-gatherer way to be less dependent on the system of the agricultural societies. Hunting and gathering was humanity’s first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history. 

In the modern context of hunter-gatherer culture, it is also described as having an emotional component, which involves healing ourselves and each other from what are perceived as 10,000-year-old wounds, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, and de-constructing the domesticating mindset in our social patterns.

To the nature-dwellers, “foraging includes prioritising direct experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and aspect of reality, connecting with our feral fury to defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands of years of patriarchal control and domestication.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau

Learn-Practice-Teach

Module 1 – Dyeing with natural colors

The dye ingredients are: red cabbage, orange osage, yellow onion, black bean, pomegranate, acorn, elderberry, japanese maple, nettles and indigo.

Module 2 – Making medicines: tinctures, salves, syrups and lozenges 

Plant medicines and herbal antibiotics have become more and more common as average folks are taking their health care back into their own hands. Concerns about side-effects, over-use, unnecessary prescribing, sky-rocketing costs and super-bugs have sales of medicinal tinctures, syrups and other plant medicines increasing every season. It is easy and inexpensive to make your own herbal tinctures, syrups, lozenges, oils, salves and more.

Module 3 – Making and using natural cordages

Whether you call it cordage, rope, string or twine, it’s all made from something, but “from what?” is not a question that many people think to ask. More often than not the strongest, the finest, and the most utilitarian types of cordage can be made from some common plant or grass that is growing right nearby.