Berlin, Germany

Drawing as a Way of Knowing - Insects

The workshop offers an intensive study of insects to initiate artistic contact with endangered fellow creatures. You will learn drawing-based research methods and work in Berlin´s Natural History Museum and the Microscopy Center of Humboldt University.

By the means of drawing, our workshop will allow an intensive study of insects and deepen the understanding of their highly endangered world.

Artists of all disciplines are increasingly facing the question of how to confront the ever more apparent reality of a destroyed planet. The raging extinction of species calls for strategies of increased attention to connect with what is not yet fully lost.

Drawing from nature may have lost its naiveté, but continues to be a productive way to gain knowledge and make contact. We teach drawing techniques that sharpen your perception and enable you to deeply experience phenomena through your eyes and hands.

On an excursion to the collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin we will meet insect experts, draw models and specimens. During the following two days, at the Humboldt University Microscopy Center, participants will learn how to use microscopes and trace the microcosm of the insect world.

The course concept follows the idea of a "nature laboratory" in which students can intensively deal with natural forms as a basis for their artistic work.

Course leader

Kerstin Hille (www.kerstinhille.de)

and

Oliver Thie (www.oliverthie.de)

Target group

Invited are visual artists, architects, designers, as well as self-taught artists with previous knowledge of drawing, who are interested in deepening their study of nature and who want to collectively open up perspectives for their respective artistic practice.

Fee info

EUR 390: course fee