We at ökoRAUSCH have been supporting creative people who implement values of sustainability since 2008.
The ökoRAUSCH design and sustainability think tank supports these people in their efforts to positively influence society, educational systems, culture and the economy. It also advocates for innovative as well as cooperative projects that contribute to the promotion of sustainable values, supports fair and eco-friendly production and consumerism and inspires people to lead a green lifestyle. The ökoRAUSCH think tank is also interested creating a network for actors from different scenes, sharing knowledge and inviting those involved to inspire each other with their innovations.
The ökoRAUSCH think tank includes long-standing members of the ökoRAUSCH team as well as creative people from the design, art and sustainability scenes they work closely with. With that, the think tank provides the public with access to the diversity of the festival throughout the whole year. All of its members are committed to encouraging the visibility of good, sustainable design practices as well as encouraging artistic expertise in the area of tension between people, society and nature.
Think Tank
(in alphabetical order)
Angela Wiegand
Network #art
Angela Wiegand is a freelance industry designer (Master of Fine Arts, USA 1982) with a focus on furniture and exhibition design. She is interested in developing original furniture that is produced in smaller workshops, in contrast to mass production. Which is why she has created a line of tables that she has produced in a carpenter’s workshop in Bavaria which she runs herself. She wanted to design a piece of furniture that is made of almost completely sustainable material, so she created a two-seater sofa, the body of which can be made from hemp fibre mats soaked in the bioplastic PLA. This material is biodegradable and carbon neutral when burned. A prototype was developed in cooperation with the Fraunhofer IWM in Halle, Germany. She is still looking for a producer for the two-seater. She is an instructor at the Munich and Upper Bavaria Chamber of Trade’s Academy of Design.
Anika Paape
Team | Project Management #conception #digital
Anika studied industrial design at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Germany. With her focus on sustainable conception and product design came the realisation that product designers are more often part of the problem than part of the solution, which steered her toward an orientiation to more conceptual projects. Her current focus is on the area of “repairing and 3D printing”: How can repairpeople gain more self-empowerment in the private domain or in Repair Cafés and simply print replacement parts themselves with a 3D printer? As a self-proclaimed tinkerer she is also interested in open workshops, she is part of the maker culture and is co-founder of the Repair Café at the civic centre “BüzE” in Cologne.
3d-reparieren.de
buergerzentrum.info/Repair+Cafe
Foto: Eren Bozbas
Anna Kamphues
Team | Exhibition #curatorship #art
After studying design in Dortmund and Lisbon, she studied social and cultural sciences in Düsseldorf. From 2012-2015 she worked as a freelance communications designer for the AFOS Foundation for Entrepreneurial Development Cooperation in the Philippines and Germany. She has developed a number of workshops for product design and environmentally friendly and socially compatible production processes for Philippine artisan handcraft cooperatives and also developed and curated a travelling exhibition that toured in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2014/2015 under the name “CRAFT ACT. Philippine Design in Transition”.
She investigates, discovers and educates; she sees design in the context of society and culture. She is as enthusiastic about traditional artisanship as she is about the development of new materials and processing technologies. As a member of the ökoRAUSCH Design and Sustainability Festival team, she is on the lookout for inspiring projects and initiatives that dedicate themselves to societal change. She also works as a trainer for “CYC LOOP – Upcycling and fair trade design workshops for teens and teachers” in different schools in and around Cologne.
Dunja Karabaic
Team | Project Lead #conception #design
With a degree in visual communication from the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg under her belt, and keeping her awareness for environmental issues in mind, Dunja Karabaic founded the “bureau gruen”, or “the green office” in 2008. She has been active in the sustainability scene since her recycling design label “RCYCLIA” hit the market in 2003. Her visit to the “ecodesignfair” in London in 2007 inspired her to bring this type of event to Germany. And with that, in the autumn of 2008, the ökoRAUSCH Fair for Design and Awareness celebrated its premier.
Since then, Dunja has been coordinating all of the ökoRAUSCH activities. She is proud that, since 2012, the ökoRAUSCH has been attracting an ever growing audience in its festival form and that it has become a nation-wide brand. With the new kick-off in 2016, many exciting challenges await the ökoRAUSCH team, such as the internationalisation of the festival and the establishment of the ökoRAUSCH blog.
Together with Nika Rams, Dunja also coordinates the “labor gruen.”, or “green laboratory.” where she devotes herself to environmental and sustainability communications. They successfully realised the innovative pilot project “Das gute Leben im Veedel”, or “The Good Life in your Neighbourhood”. The project thematises sustainable urban development and sustainability through neighbourhood. The project is promoted by the most renowned environmental foundation, the German Federal Environmental Foundation.
Ekkard Böhmer
Team | Exhibition #architecture #conception
Ekkard Böhmer, a freelance carpenter since 1994, worked in trade fair construction for many years until he could not longer stand watching how much waste was produced in this sector with regards to material, resources and most of all, people. He saw trade fairs as the consolidation of our throwaway society and didn’t want to continue being a part of it. After a life-changing event in the world of production, he decided to start on a new path. He has always liked working with people, so it was a logical choice for him to dedicate himself to becoming a vocational educator and trainer. With his new-found panache, he expertly contributes his newly acquired knowledge with his structured work processes and has used his professional motivation to find new ways to support the ökoRAUSCH team.
FRANZISKA NAGEL
Network #conception #culture
Frankziska is a teacher, cultural educator and soon-to-be art therapist. She moves between the interface of art, mediation and organisation. Besides her work in the educational field she has also worked on projects with the CityLeaks Urban Art Festival, the theatre label Rimini Protokoll and the “veedelfunker” magazine. She is especially interested in interdisciplinary and performative approaches as well as in art in public spaces that may gladly be thought provoking. She is convinced that art and culture can inspire a necessary dialogue about societal and political issues; which is why Franziska is so happy to help shape this year’s ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 programme and discover exciting actors in the fields of design and sustainability together with Stadt Land Welt e.V.
HENDRIK OLLIGES
Network #art
Hendrik Olliges graduated from the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf with an MA in art history. He is interested in art and sustainability, as well as in 19th and 20th century art, its development, historical context and reception. Even during his studies, Hendrik was involved in different cultural projects for Jack in the Box e.V., the Alte Post in Neuss, the art museum Kunstpalast and Sammlung NRW in Düsseldorf, among others.
He is currently working on his doctorate about Carl Ferdinand Sohn, a 19th artist from Düsseldorf, and he works at a renowned gallery in Düsseldorf as well as for various art projects. He has worked in different capacities as part of the ökoRAUSCH team since 2009, most recently in 2015 as co-curator of the art division.
Isabel Oestreich
Team | Exhibition #curatorship #art
visual artist, born in Lima and raised in Freetown, Lisbon, Geneva and Bonn. After her training as a carpenter, many long-distance trips and a two-year architecture programme, she began studying liberal arts at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences. She is a member of the German Federal Association of Visual Artists, the fine artists network KEK and the European network “Aquarium Compagnie”, or the “Aquarium Company”. Isabel lives and works in Cologne as a freelance artist. The focus of her work encompasses installations, land art, photography and performance, and she is interested in projects that have a strong connection with certain locations, spaces and experiences, often in interaction with nature. She has dedicated herself to sustainability in the experimental field of visual art and in her role as an ökoRAUSCH team member, she curates the art exhibits.
She is open to new ideas and sees the artistic process as an opportunity to open oneself up to new perspectives, which is a philosophy that she lives in her participation in exhibits in Germany and abroad, in artistic exchanges with different groups of artists, and in integrative artistic projects in social and cultural contexts.
JULE SCHACHT
Team | Programme #conception #culture
Jule is a freelance designer and is currently studying in the master’s programme “Integrated Design Research” at the Köln International School of Design (KISD). She is passionate about researching, designing and communicating sustainable services in urban spaces.
Through her many years of work as an actress, Jules’ design practice is shaped by a cultural perspective, influenced by theatrical practices and performative approaches. The communication of social issues and themes is as close to her heart in the performing arts as it is in design, where her work focuses on design in the context of environmental and food policy. Among other things, Jule worked as a project manager and communication consultant for the project “Klimaschutz Community Köln” (Climate Protection Community Cologne) and works as a designer for “The Good Food” in educational projects on the sustainable use of food. She is currently a lecturer at the TH Köln.
KIM HUBER
Team | PR #communication #grafics
Kim is a conceptual communication designer who finished her degree in “Sustainable Design” at the ecosign Academy of Design in Cologne in 2018. Besides preparing her with design tools and diversified knowledge about society and sustainability, through her studies she become convinced that design is not only surface improvement, but it may even have the power (and mission!) to save the world. From 2016 to 2019, she worked on different projects at the department of sustainable production and consumerism at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, translating scientific information into visual communication.
Because Kim likes to be around people, learn new things, discuss issues and be on the go, she loves conferences, presentations and workshops. For her final project at ecosign she designed an exhibition and workshop on sustainable forest management for an international Summer School. Kim joined the ökoRAUSCH team in 2019 and is excited to help organise the 2020 Festival.
Lenka Petzold
Network #education
As a freelance designer, Lenka Petzold focusses on ecological and social projects. She works on concepts and designs alike and works as the initiator of a number of projects and an educational advisor. She started out in textile design, but now she does interdisciplinary work: Product and exhibition design, the design and implementation of educational projects on topics such as upcycling and do-it-yourself projects, product seals (for environmental and social standards), and ecologically fair trading options, among other things.
Marc Rexroth
Network #changemaking
Marc is working towards his sustainable goal with his label reditum: All of the materials used have had a past life and are used to create new furniture in sheltered workshops in and around Cologne, the strong focus always being design and functionality. Besides this main job, Marc is also a member of the KölnDesign board of directors, where he actively supports the Cologne design scene. He is also an instructor for marketing at ecosign/Academy for Design. In addition, he also takes on freelance assignments in the fields of interior design, event planning as well as creative conception and public performances.
NIKA RAMS
Team | Exhibition #conception #design
Nika, who runs her own design studio, has been involved in a number of different interdisciplinary product and conceptual design projects since 2009. Her interest in design’s responsibility toward the environment began even before she started studying. Since then she has dedicated herself to the conception of creative and organisational impulses to inspire a more sustainable world and more social coexistence. Nika has taught at the ecosign Academy of Design in Cologne since 2011.
Nika also runs “labor gruen” together with Dunja Karabaic, where they both develop and implement special projects on environmental and sustainability communication. Their latest project “Das gute Leben im Veedel”, or “The Good Life in your Neighbourhood”, has been praised as an innovative pilot project for Germany, successfully showing that imparting sustainability through social coexistence can foster sustainable neighbourhood development.
The project was funded by Europe’s most renowned environmental association, the German Federal Environmental Foundation, and has been distinguished as a United Nations Decade project for “Education for Sustainable Development”.
Tatjana Krischik
Team | Programme #conception #education
In her work as a freelance designer, Tatjana Krischik combines design, sustainability and education. Her projects focus on global and intercultural aspects of sustainable design.
In 2015, Tatjana organised the HERITAGE HEROS exhibit for the German Commission for UNESCO, which was shown during the 2015 UNESCO World Heritage Committee session in Bonn, Germany. The exhibit portrayed individuals from around the globe who have committed themselves to protecting world heritage sites.
As a product designer, Tatjana has worked in Fair Trade workshops in Nepal and Cameroon and as a global learning educator she combines design and educational projects. She conceptualised and implemented the CYC LOOP workshops on upcycling and fair trade design that combined these two concepts with global learning. The workshops were developed for students and educators alike.
Tatjana is a member of the board of directors of the organisation Stadt Land Welt e.V. and an ökoRAUSCH cooperative partner who contributes her expertise in combining design with educational projects on sustainability, be it in exhibits, diverse programmes or maintaining our international contacts.
THIEMO KLEIN
Network #communication #social design
Thiemo studied communication design at the ecosign – Academy of Design in Cologne. He now has an office for sustainable communication and conception in Cologne. He sees the idea of design in the engine for societal transformation; a mere look out of the window is enough to understand that a revolution is underway that is reconnecting systems.
It is a revolution on the social and ecological levels, and societal transformation has never been as tangible as it is now. At the same time, design can take on a whole new role. Fundamental questions are now being discussed by the broader society: how do we live, work, produce and consume, and what are the consequences of our actions?
In this context, Thiemo sees himself as a mediator and designer of society, and considers “Social Design” to be a possible path toward a successful future. Therefore, structural transformation does not need more products, but tools; less hardware and more software to help people become more capable of acting, making it possible for them to actively shape the transformation and share knowledge.
