Das Ästhetische zwischen Up- und Downcycling – Textile Transformationen und normative Orientierungen in der Bildung

Abstract

This transdisciplinary description focuses on how the utopia of socio-ecological transformation and aesthetic education are connected in school practice. The text is based on autoethnographic data and my experience as an educator in the context of education for sustainable development (ESD). In an intertwining of cultural anthropology and practice-theory, I analyse a textile upcycling project in which approaches from art and cultural education are combined with ESD, general educational concepts and school development issues. The text traces how demands for transformation are represented in aesthetic arrangements in the social world of school education and what notions of normality accompany them. While working with discarded textiles opens up educational opportunities for aesthetic experience, specific aesthetic arrangements can also stabilise existing implicit social norms. What is crucial is a practice that raises awareness of structures of power, inequality and addressing and allows for indeterminate aesthetic experiences in order to unfold transformative negotiation processes. In this context, textile education appears as an open field for reflection on cultural materiality and the norms and values associated with it.