In the following winter semester 2024/25 and the subsequent summer semester 2025, we want to take a closer look at the historical and historical development of clothing and in particular the interaction of clothing and space in the broadest sense from different perspectives as part of the concept “Clothing as Space/Space as Clothing”.      This process-oriented body of work, which can be understood as a hybrid between clothing/object/sculpture/space, aims to analyze and reveal the individual perspectives of the seminar participants on the relationship between space and clothing from both a historical and contemporary perspective. The result of the collective research and discussions from the first seminar (WS24/25) will be used to create and produce in the second seminar (SS 2025) a body of work in material. These individually developed kinds of “sculptures/body/spaces” shall in the next step be bound together into a collective installative and performative presentation by all participants in which the various dimensions and senses of the thematic complex (visual/audio/smell/movement) should be part of. Since the earliest beginnings of human history, clothing has been one of the first objects, cultural goods and items made by humans. In addition to protection from the weather, when hunting and when attacked by animals or insects, clothing acts as a “second skin” for humans, not only as a protective cover, but also as a means of communication that positions the wearer in the field of tension between these aspects and has an effect both internally and externally. The reasons why people dress can be sumarized in three theories: the protection theory (clothing as protection against the environment and dangers), the shame theory (clothing for moral or religious reasons) and the jewelry theory (the desire to stand out and attract admiration). Today, it is assumed that these motives are closely related and cannot be considered in isolation. Clothing not only covers and protects, but also serves as an expression of individuality. The first known humans to wear clothes were, as previously known, Neanderthals, an extinct species of archaic humans. Finds at the Paleolithic site of Schöningen in Germany, including markings on bear bones, suggest that hominids, possibly Homo Heidelbergensis, were already using bear pelts to protect themselves from the cold as early as 300,000 years ago. A crucial step was the development of specialized stone tools that could be used to process pelts for use as clothing or leather. Originally, skins may have served as primitive sun protection before being developed into tents and later into clothing. The invention of sewing significantly increased the effectiveness of clothing, as it could now be closed and better adapted to the human body. A technical masterpiece in this context is the sewing needle. The first bone needles date from the early Upper Paleolithic (40,000 to 31,000 BC) and were made of ivory, antler or bone. Clothing has ensured human survival since the earliest times and has significantly influenced human evolution and social development. It not only enabled people to withstand external influences, but also to define themselves as individuals and as part of a society. In addition to its practical function, clothing has always reflected status, communication and socio-cultural aspects, which in turn influenced aesthetic forms of expression. In the seminar series “Clothing as Space/Space as Clothing”, we will conduct a workshop with the Kunsthochschule Berlin fashion historian to take a close look at the various histories of costume and clothing, as well as their socio-political and cultural developments and circumstances. Joint excursions to the Lipperheide Costume Library on Leipziger Platz, one of the most important costume libraries in the world, the fashion and textile collection of the Berlin City Museum, visits to the Ethnological Museum, Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig are planned (further excursions will be developed during the semester in the collective). At the same time, we will visit the various workshops at the KHB to better understand the different possibilities and personal areas of interest for the later production of our own concept in terms of material, surface and form. Based on this phase of reflection, each seminar participant will select a historical and contemporary example of clothing culture as inspiration, in order to analyze their own socio-cultural, and political content and to use it to create out of that their own body of work at the end of the two seminars (WS 24/25 and SS 25), which will involved into a joint presentation installation/ performance with the group.