Trial & Error, Berlin

Name: Trial & Error
Start date: 2010 –
Location: in the middle of a Berlin-Neukölln neighbourhood
People/organisational structure: multicultural collective of designers, media-activists, artists, pedagogues and gardeners
Main idea: to create a creative and sustainable future
Activities: DIY, urban gardening, upcycling, repair, zero waste, swap shop, neighbourhood work, international workshops, non-formal education
Facilities: rented commercial space on ground floor with a small kitchen in the back
Methods: creative activism, environmental awareness-building, neighbourhood work, informal education
Finances: project funding, grants, co-working, gifting, volunteering
Website: trial-and-error.org

“Kulturlabor Trial & Error e.V. is a Berlin based multicultural collective of designers, media-activists, artists, pedagogues, gardeners striving for a creative and sustainable future. We are active in creative activism, environmental awareness, neighbourhood work, education, and community building. Trial&Error is experienced in international workshops, non-formal education in schools and youth centres, activities in art centres and other places. We offer a variety of workshops! Visit us or organize your own workshops with us!” (from their website, accessed Dec. 12th 2022)

I am writing about this project retrospectively, already living in Denmark. My attempts to visit Trial & Error (T&E) and spend several days with them working together, asking them questions about their everyday work, problems, worries, and achievements, were always hindered by different circumstances. So I decided to write an account on our collaboration of our time with Common(s)Lab instead, out of a collaborator’s and fellow project’s perspective. T&E has existed for more than 10 years now, which is quite a long time for a non-profit project of this kind. It was founded by Ruta Vimba and a friend of hers, who later withdrew from the project, with the idea to creatively work with recycled materials in urban neighbourhoods. Ruta originally comes from Latvia, has a schoolchild who she cares for part-time together with her former partner, and has been the heart and brain of the project from the very first day. There are many collaborators and contributors who are part of the project. One of them is Max, a person always enthusiastic about all things DIY and urban gardening. Originally with an economic background, he was project manager of many projects at T&E. When we got started with Common(s)Lab, they had just won a larger call for tender initiated by the Schillerkiez Quartiersmanagement, which had the garbage issue in the neighbourhood at its focus. T&E developed the project #schk as a response to the call, which included co-design and collective visioning sessions to see what the people in the neighbourhood were longing for. We hosted two of those sessions at Common(s)Lab, and when a vision was created, they started developing events for it, including a public market for old furniture and broken things, offering repair and upcycling workshops; several festivals of community spaces (Tag der offenen Nachbarschaftsläden) in the neighbourhood, where spaces like Common(s)Lab would open their doors and offer activities, food, and drink (we participated twice, during the first one we organised an indoor gift market and during the second a DIY workshop on making wax wraps from old textiles and organic beeswax), and many other things.

Their usual program involves learning about sustainability issues, urban gardening, and a swap shop. On particular days, there are clothes swaps dedicated for baby and children’s clothes in particular. They organise a lot of regular festivals, for example, the Recycled Creativity Festival in the Lohmühlen Wagenburg, and also work on commission for the city, as for example, for socially problematic areas such as Kotti, trying to develop creative solutions to improve those areas together with local stakeholders. They also work together with schools, youth centres, and other places, to reach out to the young ones and also give them a voice.

Even though T&E does not address these topics explicitly, they embody practices of commoning and postcapitalist possibilities in everything they do in a very practical and informal way. Most workshops are on donation-basis or try to be as accessible as possible, and the swap shops address alternative economies through gifting and re-valuing clothes without the use of money. Upcycling, recycling, and repair practices address consumerism through creative methods by inventing new techniques and ideas through craft, making, and technical knowledge and skill-sharing, enabling participants to be critical and active rather than passive buyers of new things. Furthermore, T&E enables communities of practice, place and interest in the neighbourhood and beyond, as an infrastructure for activities, togetherness, and political agency – just like the other projects I visited, La Foresta and Food Hall, like many other community projects, and like what we as Common(s)Lab tried to achieve as well.

What I find quite remarkable and unique is their multicultural and international collaborations: since 2015, they have done cultural youth exchanges with Ukraine together with Artistania e.V., and now under the present war, they organise solidarity breakfasts, where donations go to Ukraine. T&E always has interns from around the world and is engaged in offering Erasmus learning experiences for young people interested in environmental issues and upcycling. Over the years, T&E has become a stable community project much appreciated by both the municipality, locals and neighbours, and an international community of makers and activists. They managed to become masters of applying for funding and thus managed to make ends meet somehow. Their program and approach has inspired and shaped us as Common(s)Lab and we are thankful for our many collaborations and their unbureaucratic support and inspiration.