ONLINE Materials Club Talk: Maren Krings

Everyone is welcome to join the STEAMhouse Materials Club  for a talk and conversation with Maren Krings author of ‘H for Hemp’

Materials Club has been active as a community-led research group in Birmingham since 2019. Now in its third year, it has become a creative-led research space exploring questions related to our ecological future through deep material practices.

Each month a different STEAMhouse member invites a guest to share their materials practice. Their presentation will be followed by an open discussion that will delve deeper into our guest’s personal values and motivations for their work, with a focus on materiality and our current global context. This month’s guest Maren Krings has been invited by STEAMhouse member Clare Hewitt

Maren Krings is a German photographer and climate impact storyteller whose work seeks solutions to socio-ecological impacts to help mitigate the current climate crisis.

Krings has a B.F.A. from the Savannah College of Art & Design (USA), and her work has been published in international media outlets such as Stern, WWF, The Outdoor Journal, and Rotary among others, as well as displayed internationally at the Rencontres d’Arles, the Hemp Museum Amsterdam, Bauhaus University Weimar, the BOKU University Vienna, the Museum of Fine Art Tallahassee, and others.

She is the author of four books. The latest,`H is for Hemp´, is the first one to reach international recognition and impact. In this book she reflects on her six-year journey into the worldwide rediscovery of industrial hemp in 26 countries and four continents. Krings photographed more than 200 projects and interviewed more than 80 industry-experts to show the plant’s potential to mitigate the socio-ecological crisis. The encyclopaedia-style book is printed on tree-free hemp paper, exclusively produced by German paper manufacturer Hahnemühle.

Maren is influenced by her experience living and working with Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and Northern Europe, in 2006 Krings founded the Center for Arts and Humanity. The curation of exhibitions, art-projects (such as WE AR’T) and the residencies for artists seek to create a modern crossroad between socially engaged art, Indigenous traditional ecological wisdom and our modern challenges brought about by the climate crisis.

Where is this event?

This event will be held online via Zoom. You are invited to join us from 6pm for a short introduction before Maren speaks about her work. This will be followed by an informal conversation facilitated by Clare.

Presented as part of the STEAMhouse Create Programme.

STEAMhouse is a space to experiment, test and develop new knowledge. At the project’s heart are five key principles – conversation, exploration, collaboration, openness and newness. The STEAMhouse Create Programme is a free ERDF funded programme that supports resource-poor businesses to build digital skills and make their new product, project, or service ideas a reality.

Open since early 2018, STEAMhouse is powered by Birmingham City University, in partnership with Eastside Projects and funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The STEAMhouse Create Programme supports businesses, including self-employed, sole-trading artists, to test new ideas, prototype and make new products and services (which if you are an artist may be artworks) as well as explore the potential of digital technologies to help you collaborate and innovate.

Find out more HERE