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Sewing Workshop

Nadja Buttendorf

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

Saturday, 02.08.2025

Nadja Buttendorf

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

Sewing Workshop

1:00 - 2:30 PM

Duration: approx. 90 minutes

Limited capacity! RSVP via bonjour@tropeztropez.de

 

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

 

Do you identify as an Ossi? Or perhaps as a Wessi? Does embracing one identity mean rejecting the other? Who still sees meaning in these categories today? Why do they remain significant to some, while for others they seem outdated or irrelevant? And why does this most recent chapter of German history remain so absent – especially in West Germany? At the Ossi/Wessi Sewing Café, participants are invited to reflect on these questions while engaging in a shared activity. Artist Nadja Buttendorf’s reversible WENDE sequins – bearing the labels OSSI and WESSI – can be sewn onto your own clothing. As we stitch, we invite conversation: about personal experience, generational memory, and the cultural and economic legacies of reunification. This workshop is also an invitation to talk about the broader conditions of production in a globalised world – from textile labour to economic disparity. The Sewing Café creates a space for exchange, for challenging inherited narratives, and for making visible what is often left unsaid.

All sewing materials and OSSI/WESSI patches will be provided. Please bring your own t-shirt or pullover! 10 spaces only.

About the artist

 

Nadja Buttendorf’s artistic practice is rooted in participation and interaction, often inviting audiences into her narrative and thematic worlds. Her work spans video series, workshop performances, jewellery, garments, and social media interventions, forming an interconnected network of formats. She critically explores the norms of gender construction and the mechanisms through which bodies are valued in digital and capitalist systems. Knowledge-sharing and self-empowerment are central to her approach, often expressed through DIY aesthetics – used both as a tool for access and a strategy of resistance against neoliberal work ethics. Buttendorf’s work has been presented at institutions including HKW Berlin, Kunsthalle Bremen, La Gaîté Lyrique Paris, MU Eindhoven, and panke.gallery Berlin, among others. She has also delivered lecture performances at Re:publica, CCC, Creamcake, and nGbK Berlin. Trained as a goldsmith, she studied fine arts at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale).

Sewing Workshop

Nadja Buttendorf

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

Saturday, 02.08.2025

Nadja Buttendorf

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

Sewing Workshop

1:00 - 2:30 PM

Duration: approx. 90 minutes

Limited capacity! RSVP via bonjour@tropeztropez.de

 

OSSI/WESSI Sewing Café

 

Do you identify as an Ossi? Or perhaps as a Wessi? Does embracing one identity mean rejecting the other? Who still sees meaning in these categories today? Why do they remain significant to some, while for others they seem outdated or irrelevant? And why does this most recent chapter of German history remain so absent – especially in West Germany? At the Ossi/Wessi Sewing Café, participants are invited to reflect on these questions while engaging in a shared activity. Artist Nadja Buttendorf’s reversible WENDE sequins – bearing the labels OSSI and WESSI – can be sewn onto your own clothing. As we stitch, we invite conversation: about personal experience, generational memory, and the cultural and economic legacies of reunification. This workshop is also an invitation to talk about the broader conditions of production in a globalised world – from textile labour to economic disparity. The Sewing Café creates a space for exchange, for challenging inherited narratives, and for making visible what is often left unsaid.

All sewing materials and OSSI/WESSI patches will be provided. Please bring your own t-shirt or pullover! 10 spaces only.

About the artist

 

Nadja Buttendorf’s artistic practice is rooted in participation and interaction, often inviting audiences into her narrative and thematic worlds. Her work spans video series, workshop performances, jewellery, garments, and social media interventions, forming an interconnected network of formats. She critically explores the norms of gender construction and the mechanisms through which bodies are valued in digital and capitalist systems. Knowledge-sharing and self-empowerment are central to her approach, often expressed through DIY aesthetics – used both as a tool for access and a strategy of resistance against neoliberal work ethics. Buttendorf’s work has been presented at institutions including HKW Berlin, Kunsthalle Bremen, La Gaîté Lyrique Paris, MU Eindhoven, and panke.gallery Berlin, among others. She has also delivered lecture performances at Re:publica, CCC, Creamcake, and nGbK Berlin. Trained as a goldsmith, she studied fine arts at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale).