Vivir para ver...

(A text by Mandi Keighran read at the magazine N by Norwegian issued in July 2017)

Berlin-based label Raubdruckerin takes prints from manhole covers for its shirt designs, so you can take home a real piece of the city.

Textile designer Emma-France Raff is taking street fashion to a whole new, and very literal, level. Back in 2006, while living in Portugal, Raff and her father, painter Johannes Kohlrusch, developed the idea of using urban features - manhole covers, street paving and grilles - as plates for a rudimentary printing press.

"It's kind of like a giant stamp," says Raff of the process, which involves rolling ink over the chosen detail and pressing fabric onto it to transfer the pattern.

They called their original collection "estampatampa" and presented it at the Festival Musicas do Mundo in Sines, Portugal. Then, when Raff returned to Berlin two years later, she was inspired by the city's graphic manhole covers, and began to print them onto bags, T-shirts and hoodies. Passers-by were intrigued by her novel works, which she sold under the name Raubdruckerin, or "pirate printers".

"This way of textile printing in a public space creates situations that would never happen in conventional textile printing," says Raff, who now works from "plates" in Berlin's Mitte, Kreuzberg, Neukölin and Friedrichshain districts. "It creates possibilities for spontaneity and makes the project more human. It offers an alternative to today's mass production."

Now, whenever she travels, Raff packs her printing materials and is always on the lookout for suitable surfaces. "I love patterns that are very detailed or very abstract," she says. She also looks for structures that have a link to where she's printing. In Madrid, for example, she printed a manhole cover adorned with the Metro logo; in Amsterdam, she found a bicycle motif; and in Lisbon the pattern featured the city's name and a boat. Future plans for Raubdruckerin include a grand tour through Europe and, eventually, to Japan - home to "the most extravagant manhole covers in the world".

Those who fancy giving street-printing a go should sign up to the newsletter to stay informed about workshops - or you can pop down to the open atelier on Boddinstrasse, Berlin, every Thursday and Friday from 1pm to 7pm and take home your own piece of the city.

raubdruckerin.de

More alternative street art

AnonyMouse MMX - A street artist (or collective) that goes by the monike AnonyMouse MMX has been creating whimsical mouse-sized scenes around the streets of Malmo, Sweden. So far, there are shops, restaurants, a bakery and even an amusement park.

instagram.com/anonymouse_mmx

EVOL - Also in Berlin, street artist EVOL transforms electricity and fuss boxes, concrete blocks and other urban elements into tiny apartment buildlings using stencils as part of his ongoing Buildings street-art series.

evoltaste.com

Yarn bombing - Also known as guerilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting or graffiti knitting... since the mid-2000s, knitter - like London collect Knit the City - have been taking to the streets, adorning everything from trees to phone boxes with colourful knits.

knitthecity.com

Etiquetas: Cosas veredes