The conglomerate sees great potential in DIY as a way of taking the fate of the world into our own hands and providing important impetus for future developments. Driven by this intention, Konglomerat e.V. promotes a 'do-it-yourself culture' in a variety of ways.
Thebasis of all our activities for the realization of a practice of sustainable development is the #Rosenwerk. The CoMaking Space and place of joint learning and action has been run by the association on a voluntary and collective basis since 2015. With over 800 square meters of space, everyone can use the 13 work areas, from high to low tech, to implement their own projects. These include
| textiles | 3D printing | CNC milling | laser cutting | metal and mechanical engineering | wood | plastics recycling and processing | screen printing | digital printing | photo studio and analog development | electronics | material mediation | concrete
The purpose of the association is to provide organizational and technical support for craft, cultural, artistic and social projects from civil society. In addition, Konglomerat e.V. initiates its own cooperation projects, designs cultural spaces and is a service provider for innovative concepts that lead from knowledge to action. This includes projects in the fields of urban and spatial development, community building, sustainable management and environmental education, as well as commissioned work in the fields of knowledge transfer, event planning and implementation, participation concepts, product design and furniture construction. In particular, Konglomerat e.V. advises and supports the conception and development of community workshops of all kinds in a practical way.
Our shared vision is a cooperative society in which self-inflicted problems are not passed on to distant countries or future generations, but in which diverse solutions are developed locally and transdisciplinary.
The principle of open workshops consolidates "education for sustainable development" on a practical level. Above all, it teaches skills and creates opportunities that enable people to think and act in a sustainable way: Together, in a social fabric that is fun, citizens once again become masters of the material world that surrounds them and determines their actions - they learn to design, repair, understand and literally grasp things themselves with their whole bodies.
"To "grasp" something means, in a return to the origin of the word, that I perform an action that confronts me with the materiality of the object I am looking at. In addition to looking at the object, I also touch it and grasp it in the truest sense of the word. This additional information helps the brain to penetrate much deeper into the meaning of the object and thus actually understand it. Understanding therefore means using the mind and body to interpret an object. And that is precisely what is necessary to give us, as physical beings, an idea of the world that surrounds us." gerd Folkers
It has been scientifically proven many times over that mere knowledge of environmental and climate-damaging interrelationships does not significantly change one's own actions in a positive way(cf. Ando et al. 2010). The open workshop counters this with the principle of self-efficacy. If I experience that I can make my everyday life in the city more climate-friendly and at the same time more liveable not through consumption, but through my own actions, this has a far greater impact on my (action) awareness than a lecture I have listened to or similar. Through my own practice, I am currently developing a concrete, meaningful alternative to the prevailing, unsustainable supply structures. People who have internalized this approach overcome the powerlessness of the consumer and the alienation caused by the absolute division of labour (and thus the enormous emissions displacement effects that this entails).
The Association of Open Workshops is the umbrella organization for all open workshops, makerspaces, FabLabs and RepairCafés in Germany. As a member, we are therefore part of an entire DIY and DIT movement.
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