Workshop:
(Un)Real
Ecologies
Microplastics workshop with
Kat Austen & Frithjof Glowinski
13/14
April 2019, 1-6PM

Photos:
Art Laboratory Berlin
Plastic
has pervaded water, soil and our bodies. It is the new icon of our
time. During the (Un)Real Ecologies: Microplastics workshop
we will explore the presence of microplastics in the Panke River,
near Art Laboratory Berlin. How do organisms and microorganisms
exist with and construct with these human-made materials? We will
investigate water samples, to discover a new understanding of the
reality of the Panke's ecosystem, with plastic present and wholly
a part of it - a microcosm that allows us to ask: "what is
nature?"
In
the workshop participants will use DIY chemistry methods to separate
microplastics from mineral and organic matter, and discover the
origins of the plastics they find by creating density columns. They
will also learn about the ecology of the Panke River and the Citizen
Science project DIY Hack the Panke.
Kat
Austen is a succession of experiences and an assemblage of aspirations.
She creates artworks that explore multiple knowledges, from music
to embodied knowledge to DIY science, focusing on emotional connections
between what we consider internal and external. Kat is a Teaching
Fellow on UCL's Arts and Sciences BASc, and is Artist in Residence
in UCL's Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences. Previous residencies
include Artist in the Arctic, NYU Shanghai Gallery and ArtOxygen.
Kat was an inaugural member of the London Creative Network programme.
She is based in Berlin.
Frithjof
Glowinski studied biochemistry at the University of Greifswald.
Subsequently, he received his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute
for Infection Biology in Berlin for infections relating to the stomach
bacterium Helicobacter pylori. The focus was on the balance between
bacteria and humans, as well as the long-term consequences of this
interaction. He is currently teaching biology and chemistry at a
school near the Panke. Together with Art Laboratory Berlin and the
DIY Hack the Panke collective, he organizes workshops with children
from the school along the Panke.
Documentation
and worksite of the workshop
DIY
Protocols
More
images (on our photoblog)
Die
Veranstaltung erfolgt in Kooperation mit dem Projekt DIY
Hack the Panke.

Along the Panke River in Berlin-Wedding
Lifting
the nets (l); sieving the findings (r)
Building a DIY denisty column
Looking for microplastics with a digital microscope
Staining the findings with Nile Red
Kat Austen doing a wet hydrogen peroxide oxidation(l); different
types of found plastics (r)
Microplastic thread (l) and particles found using Nile Red (r)
Supported by the Fachbereich Kunst und Kultur Bezirksamt Mitte and
the Bezirkskulturfonds:
|