By Markus Kather
These days Karl-Marx-Straße, Neukölln’s beloved/notorious strip of gambling places and discount stores, has one more highlight. Local designers organized in the NEMONA fashion network are presenting their work at a temporary store. Continue reading
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by Markus Kather
This weekend Neukölln, one of Berlin’s most interesting districts for art and design, is showing off: Nacht und Nebel is a festival for local art and culture. In more than 100 locations Neukölln’s artists will present their work. At the NEMONA store near Hermannplatz, two young fashion designers present pieces that result from a collaboration with seniors in Helsinki. Continue reading
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Nemona designers at the Neukölln Fashion Weekend
By Claudia Rojas
After presenting an urban analysis of Nemona and narrating some histories of social integration in Neukölln, Berlin, in this article we will summarize the most important activities and accomplishments of Nemona´s fashion designers. Their participation (as well as the participation of fashion producers) has a special characteristic that contributed to the success of this network: cooperation. The network´s participants are not encouraged to compete against each other, but, on the contrary, they are encouraged to cooperate with each other. This might sound like an empty phrase, but a couple of real-life examples should help to make this point a little clearer.
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Photo by Augustin Teboul
by Claudia Rojas
This article is the second of a series that analyzes Nemona – Network for fashion designers and seamstresses -, in which we present stories of integration in Neukölln around fashion production.
As we have written before, the target group of our project are fashion designers and producers. The members of these two groups are mostly women, in particular because of their abilities and long experience in sewing and knitting, among others. Women with migration background often suffer more obstacles / difficulties when entering the labour market – that is why we decided to focus our initiative on this particular social group. This way, we could contribute to the integration process in Neukölln. Continue reading
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by Claudia Rojas
Are we helping to create a better neighbourhood or are we dispensable in its development? This is a question that we ask ourselves when analysing city development projects like Nemona.
Nemona is a project that fosters a sustainable partnership between seamstresses and fashion designers in Neukölln, Berlin, and it has already been presented in this blog (see here and here). One year after beginning the project, we thought it would be a good idea to make an analysis of what it has been achieved so far. Therefore, we will offer a series of 3 articles with an overview of the venture. Today, we start presenting an analysis of whether the project has contributed to neighbourhood development in Neukölln (part 1). In the upcoming weeks, we will submit integration stories from the fashion producers (part 2), and stories of the fashion designers (part 3). Continue reading
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NEMONA Showroom Summer 2011
The first part of this article (Monday 5th March) was an introduction to the evolution of the planning discourse since German reunification (1990); part two (Wednesday 7th March) introduced the issue of Creative Industries (in the Berlin context) in quantitative and qualitative terms; today’s part 3 is about the spatial dimensions of the creative economy; and finally part 4 is a short presentation of a project (NEMONA) which tries to answer to the new challenges that the creative economy imposes on our understanding of urban space.
The spatial dimension of the Creative Industries
It is time to focus into Berlin and see how the CI are distributed in the city: Continue reading
by Valentin Schipfer
For six years now I’ve been living in Vienna’s 15th district, but nothing has changed since. People still behave the same when they find out where I live. Once I was even told not to worry or that it did not matter! Most of them have never even been here, but still bear primarily negative images in their mind – similar to the ones described in that link . The sad thing is that these images aren’t completely far from reality. Before introducing you to my two place branding concepts, some words about the district’s history. Continue reading
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by Ares Kalandides
“How do you feel as a gentrifier?” I was recently asked by a journalist. I initially thought she was referring to the fact that I live in one of the most gentrified areas in Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg. I was about to stammer something along the lines of: “I’ve been there before” or “I do not have enough money to be called a real gentrifier” etc. , but then she interjected. “I mean your Neukölln project”. Now this took me by surprise. The project I am working on in Neukölln (see past blog entries on NEMONA here and here), is about bringing young fashion designers and immigrant tailors/seamstresses together in a Berlin neighbourhood (Neukölln), with extremely low social indicators (poverty, unemployment, education etc.). Continue reading
By Caspar Lundsgaard-Hansen & Renard Teipelke
In our last article, we introduced NEMONA – a prime example of local network initiatives in sustainable urban development with a thematic focus on the fashion production in Berlin. In order to gain further insight into this model project, we asked Daniela Fleig and Sabine Hülsebus, both project managers at NEMONA, to explain the project regarding urban issues like neighbourhood regeneration, community participation in northern Neukölln and local economic development. Continue reading
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By Caspar Lundsgaard-Hansen & Renard Teipelke
The fashion and design scene is booming in Berlin.
The inner-city part of Berlin’s district Neukölln is becoming the latest insider’s tip for the capital city’s cool and hip urban life.
Cultural diversity and ethnic mixture (or segregation depending on the perspective) are key features of Berlin’s immigrant neighborhoods.
Why not bring all these things together?
NEMONA – Network for Fashion & Design is a model project co-funded by the European Social Fund and is a prime example of local network initiatives in sustainable urban development. Based in Mainzer Straße 5 in the northern part of Neukölln (map), the project aims at bringing together fashion designers and producers in a cooperative network that fosters sustainable solutions in the fashion industry on the local level. Continue reading
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