"WAND": Local Resources and Craftsmanship for Sustainable Construction
In summer 2024, the exhibition “WAND”, conceived by Olaf Holzapfel in collaboration with the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA), will open its doors in Dessau. This multifaceted project combines contemporary art with traditional craft techniques. Through an artistic installation and participatory processes, it highlights the connections architecture can have with the organic world and sustainable materials.
Olaf Holzapfel has long cooperated with artisans and communities that use traditional techniques. Notable past collaborations include those with weavers from the Wichí community in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina and carpenters from Lower Saxony, creating projects with natural, region-specific materials. This creative process is fully reflected in the “WAND” project.
By bringing together regional expertise, such as a basket-weaving expert and the company and Think Thank Bauhauserde, Holzapfel develops a reflection on the perception of materials and the understanding of sustainable construction methods. The central point is a sculpture composed of an assembly of raw materials, created in collaboration with artisans and followed in their process by students from Anhalt University and employees of the Federal Environment Agency in a participatory approach. This installation thus creates a link between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary art, between local resources and sustainability goals, marked here by both the materials and the awareness inherent in the project.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of workshops, lectures, screenings, and seminars that deepen the discourse on sustainable materials and innovative applications in architecture and design. These events provide practical knowledge and promote awareness of ecological construction methods. Themes such as the use of organic materials—wood, straw, reed, and clay—as alternatives to concrete are highlighted in both theoretical and artistic ways.
Cooperation with the architecture class at Anhalt University is a key element of the project. The students accompany the entire programme from the project's launch conference onwards, developing their own proposals and presenting a selection of them within the exhibition.
The official opening of “WAND” on 27 June 2024 will create a platform for exchange between the artist, scientists from the Federal Environment Agency, students, and the general public. The exhibition invites the search for creative solutions to contemporary challenges, not through the invention of new technologies but through the rediscovery of techniques and materials. “WAND” in Dessau thus becomes an exemplary exhibition showing how art and sustainability can go hand in hand, fostering a collective reflection on our approach to construction techniques, the preservation of traditional knowledge, and the role of art in sharing these issues.
More information is available on the Federal Environment Agency's website.
