Melitta Baumeister, fashion designer
Melitta Baumeister is a German fashion designer based in New York City. After training in tailoring, she completed an MFA in Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design before founding her own brand.
In 2014, Melitta's debut collection was shown at New York Fashion Week. This led to her being featured in Vogue Magazine, The New York Times, i.D., Numeró and Self Service, among others, giving her career a major boost and allowing her to show her work at prestigious events in London and Paris.
Melitta Baumeister is interested in the sculptural quality of clothing. She exaggerates volumes and reshapes silhouettes, often using unusual materials and experimental techniques. This particular approach has been praised by international boutiques and museums alike.
Almut Benkert. Head of Department Creative Industries
Almut Benkert has been head of the City of Pforzheim's Creative Industries department since the end of 2011. She was responsible for the conversion of the former Emma-Jaeger-Bad into the EMMA creative centre, which she has headed since 2014, and initiated the commissioning of the Alfons-Kern-Turm (A.K.T;), which is also managed by the creative industries department.
She previously studied law and cultural and media management in Freiburg, Munich and Berlin and was self-employed with an agency for cultural management in Berlin. She also worked at the Hanover State Theatre and the Stuttgart State Opera.
Anja Kaiser, graphic designer and artist
Anja Kaiser is a graphic designer and artist. She is concerned with the appropriation of resistant media, undisciplined graphic methods and a 'messy' design history. In self-initiated projects, she negotiates feminist themes and explores alternative narratives and porous tools in graphic design. In doing so, she explores the transitions between graphics, design, art, music and forms of digital self-empowerment. She operates in an activist environment, in subcultural scenes and searches for free spaces for social co-design.
Until March 2023, Anja Kaiser held the Chair of Typography at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Her work was shown and honoured at the International Design Biennale in Brno. In 2017 she received the INFORM price the Gallery for Contemporary Art Leipzigan award for conceptual design at the interface of graphic design and art. 2020 dedicated her Le Signe - Centre National du Graphisme in Chaumont, a comprehensive solo exhibition on her autonomous and applied design practice.
Luzia Vogt, jewellery artist
Luzia Vogt is a jewellery and product designer and works in her studio in Basel.
She learned the craft from scratch in a goldsmith apprenticeship, worked for several years in various companies in Canada and Switzerland and deepened and expanded her skills by studying jewellery and device design at the University of Applied Sciences in Pforzheim (D), at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NASCAD) in Halifax (CA) and with silversmiths in Tokyo (J). In 2018, she graduated with a Master's degree in Product Design from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU in Lucerne, CH).
Luzia Vogt has won various prizes, including the 2005 Swiss Federal Design Award and the Inhorgenta Europe innovation prize, and has taught at the University of Liechtenstein and Pforzheim University. Her works can be found in various private and public collections, such as the National Museum in Zurich, the MUDAC in Lausanne (both CH), the Château Borély in Marseille (F) and the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin (USA).
Charlett Wenig, materials researcher and industrial designer
Charlett Wenig is a materials researcher and industrial designer specialising in local biomaterials, their properties and processing potential. She studied Industrial Design (B.A.) at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences and then completed her Master's degree in Integrated Design at Bremen University of the Arts, where she focussed on the processing of animal bones from slaughterhouse waste in design. She completed her doctorate in materials engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. In her dissertation, she researched the characterisation and sustainable use of native tree bark species, combining scientific methods with design approaches. At the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, she is a member of the research group Adaptive Fibrous Materials. There, she is dedicated to analysing local plant species - including those from paludiculture - and researching their structure, properties and functions. On this basis, she develops application scenarios for the high-quality and sustainable use of these materials in design. Charlett Wenig teaches and supervises theses at various national and international universities in the fields of design and materials research, including Bremen University of the Arts, Weißensee School of Art Berlin, Bilgi University in Istanbul, Bauhaus University Weimar and Aalto University in Helsinki.
