To convene. To converge. To compare. To combine. To compose.
To collectively act.
To assemble. To accumulate. To aggregate. To amass. To arrange
(and rearrange). To actively collect.
All of these actions are part of the practice of collection. This is a material, spatial, and social practice. Collections are more than just accumulations of multiples. A collection reveals a meaning in each of its elements that emerges never in isolation but always in relation. Through rules of engagement and arrangement—of objects, places and actions—these elements accumulate emergently into a system of their own. With a process of pattern recognition, and the logic of the edited montage, a successful collection reveals coincidences that surprise us; offers interpolated and interpreted narratives; and reveal a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Our new times require new ways of coming together. The word Collection comes from the Latin colligere, “to gather together into one place or one group, ” an act of location and co-location, of radical juxtaposition that integrates material, spatial and social experience.
For its 2025-2026 fellowship program, dieDAS invited practitioners from contrasting but complementary disciplines (architects, performers, artists, writers, scenographers, sociologists), a community of designers as activators of space. The proposal for this residency consists of active collection and collective action, placed into dialogue with one another, in order to create new encounters.
Three actions were proposed.
1. REPAIR
To repair is to retrieve the useful, as well as to resignify what can no longer sustain its former use. Part of the art of collection is conservation: acts of mending and sustaining. Throughout current renovation and construction of the former Saalecker Werkstätten - that now houses dieDAS Design Akademie-, a selection of materials, fixtures, and details—what some might see as debris, diverted from the waste-stream—were be set aside and conserved reserved as a resource for fellows. Fellows worked with this object archive recovered during restoration and renovation of the historic building. An “as found” attitude identified abundance in apparent scarcity, and usefulness in apparent uselessness. This is the implementation of a “Material Harvest”—preserving memories and making meanings. Deconstruction of the house activated a reconstruction of architectural fragments—into a new setting of gathering together. Temporary displacement from the house activated a placement into a new installation.
2. RECOLLECT
Our second collective action is the act of re-collection (objects, subjects, and stories), in an ongoing process throughout the fellowship, to develop a practice of looking closer, drawing together and acting upon our observations. We learned by doing, while we collected individually, within a social collectivity. Open to coincidence, to happenstance, to serendipity, each fellow developed assemblage, collage, and montage, capable of recombination with every other fellow’s collection.
3. REACT
As a closure, the traditional dieDAS “Walk and Talk” will be transformed into a collective action. Our third collection is a forum for gathering, a symposium for sharing, a gymnasium for practicing, a space in time to extrapolate meaningful relationships between the dieDAS community. A placemaking event. An eventful and purposeful ritual to build relationships and exchange ideas. The “theater” of convening a community into an installation piece where all of us—fellows, staff, curators, guests—play an active role in the placemaking practice.
A happenstance is what happens when we take chances and when we take stances. A combination of uncertainty and certainty. The unknown encounters the known. Discovery meets invention.
Our happenstance will be staged, drawing on strategies of political and theatrical assembly, to choreograph a "theatre-in-the-round" where the boundary between performance and audience , walker and talker, is bridged and woven in a common ground.
We collect ourselves in order to act.
We act in order to collect ourselves—and one another.
Rozana Montiel
dieDas Artistic Director 2025-2027
“For two weeks, you step outside your everyday routine into a space for exploration, creativity, and shared learning.
— Hira Rasool, dieDAS Fellow 2026
“I think the true strength of the program is the people they bring together—how we engage with and learn from each other, and hopefully build new networks along the way. Creating those connections is maybe the best part of the experience, and I’m so happy to come away with new friends and potential collaborators.”
— Christopher Benton, dieDAS Fellow 2026
“From the moment I got off the train, I felt welcomed into something close and familial. That sense of connection makes intensive collective work possible.”
— Sonia Kazovsky, dieDAS Fellow 2026
"Through the process of collecting and taking on the role of archivist, I’ve come to understand an archive not simply as a place, but as an act—archiving as a verb. An archive has the capacity to connect people and ideas, to create relationships that extend beyond the present moment, and potentially, to become a movement."
— Malika Leiper, dieDAS Fellow 2026
