The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation ran a two-part virtual workshop for students in the Department of Human Centered Design (HCD) this fall. The program was coordinated by Catherine Blumenkamp, lecturer and associate director of the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection (CF+TC); this is the second year the enrichment was offered.

Participants began the workshop with a simple exercise of printing their name in four different orientations. The goal was to unlearn the literal approach to writing by translating the lines into a graphic. This “undoing,” creates an experience that frees the designer from predetermined categories and is consistent with Bauhaus principles of tension—between feeling and thinking, intuition and intellect, expression and construction.

“Working with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is an opportunity to be present and build with one another," said Blumenkamp. "Through handwork we build relationships and rapport which leads to more creative output."

Students chose garments from the CF+TC and submitted them to the Schools of Departure Digital Atlas (click Notes). The atlas aggregates research on the global interrelationships of Bauhaus pedagogy with projects in art and design education. HCD students expanded the textile portion of the atlas – highlighting items from CF&TC using an alternative to the standard visual/editorial description. One student composed an original piece of music as the alternative record for an Algerian coat. At the second workshop students and faculty, from the Bauhaus and Cornell, discussed the alternate narratives.

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is an artistic-scientific foundation with the mission of preserving and passing on the ideas and themes of the Bauhaus. The Foundation researches, conserves and passes on the Bauhaus legacy in the form of the buildings, the collection and the variety of themes spanning architecture, design and art. The Bauhaus and its sites in Weimar and Dessau, Germany have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage list.