Handicrafts and Appropriate Technology

Project Publications
Saturday, August 10, 2024

Our project initiator is more than that; more than 75 years of successful work are recorded in the following list:

Publications:

and compiled from the archives /SentaSillerArchiv-Landgut Stober-Cultura e.V. Nauen + ForZat-HVK-DGFK e.V. Berlin

Senta Maria Anna Siller (née Zmavc in Vienna) is a German designer, calligrapher, entrepreneur, organizer and project initiator. She was born in Vienna as one of six siblings. She is the great-niece of the illustrator Ernst Kutzer and the niece of the archaeologist Herrmann Vetters. After the war she grew up in Franconia, Germany. Between 1962 and 1988 she raised four children in Berlin. She owes her socialization to the living conditions after the Second World War. To improve her family's support, she earned money early on with paper cuttings and illustrations for newspapers in Bavarian newspapers. She studied graphic design at the State Academy of Fine Arts under Richard Blank (1901-1972, designer, calligrapher). As a graphic designer she received commissions in the areas of exhibition and trade fair construction, children's clothing, toys and book illustration. Further studies followed at the Technical University of Berlin, where she studied archaeology, philosophy, education and art history. She wrote her dissertation on the life and work of Carl Otto Czeschka. At the same time, she ran a children's clothing retail company and, as student director at the Berlin Lette-Verein, headed training in photography, graphic design and fashion design.

Since the 1970s, Siller has been collaborating with N. Pintsch in the German Society for the Promotion of Culture (DGFK, also in Berlin), a volunteer-run and privately financed association for the promotion of culture in various foreign projects. She developed projects in which scientific research results on traditional culture were to be used to develop income-generating measures for women in rural areas and to stem the rural exodus.

Her work has been exhibited at home and abroad and has been recognized with awards and medals. What is special about her work is its altruism and intercultural cooperation. She continues to work on a voluntary basis (Cultura e.V. on the Stober estate in Gross Behnitz/Nauen.

Labels: Camcatbam, Dr Senta Siller, Spathcameroon

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:52 AM, ,

Booklets from Senta Siller
Friday, April 5, 2024

Click here to read

Labels: Dr Senta Siller, Publications

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 10:48 AM, ,

Kunsthaus Dahlem Lyceum Club England
Wednesday, September 27, 2023

For CAT and Kids Club friends

Labels: CAT, Exhibition, Kids Club

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:52 AM, ,

Bartolome de las Casas and Hans Knoepfli
Monday, September 18, 2023

There is another way to go about it

by Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch / IPC

Bartolome de las Casas (1484-1566) worked in Central America and Hans Knoepfli (1927-2023) in the Cameroonian grasslands; Both were connected to the organization of the church, but both are committed to preserving the traditional structures. De las Casas worked against enslavement, Knoepfli against the selling off of traditional values. Both worked on location - Being recognized for their work was not their main concern!

In our present time of global-digital-unification, it is of utter important to preserve the traditional-analogue-system, - without taking into account the influence of mass tourism, job creations, pseudo-inter-relationships, - the pseudo-values of the current time!

Academic institutions and their allies cannot carry out this task, - their stubbornness hinders and prevents them!

For this purpose and for this reason, there is a need to make efforts and carry out in-depth research, ignoring the prevailing and adopted values in order to create awareness about traditional values!

Please see the literature here and here.

Labels: Amjad Ali Thatta Ghulamka Dhriroka, Cultura e V Nauen, DGFK e V Berlin, Ignatius Nji Bamenda, Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch IPC, Romillio Rodriguez Fajardo Chiquinquira

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:16 AM, ,

Of the Power of the Small
Wednesday, June 28, 2023

To preserve traditional cultural assets

Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch

No matter what is conceived or initiated, - more or less quickly the thought process moves to mass thinking and mass production; The motive in the background is to be able to participate in global events.

Even if such thought processes are understandable due to the global spree, still the preservation and support of small-scale and unspectacular projects are necessary.

It is not the globalization and digitization that represents the basis for the future, but the increasingly disappearing analog, the cultural asset that has emerged at some point - similar to the arctic seed vault in Spitzergen in the area of plants and horticulture.

It is urgently needed to support the delicate shoots of such projects is urgently needed, including the preservation of the environment.

The usual commercialization of such projects is counterproductive and destructive!

Labels: Alahkie, Bamenda RUC, CAT, Cultura e V Nauen, DGFK e V Berlin, Norbert Pintsch, Senta Siller

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3:08 PM, ,

Announcement - Annonce
Thursday, February 16, 2023

On the occasion of Senta Siller's 88th birthday in 2023, the Friends of the SSDC in TGD have resolved to publish a memorandum in her honor.

This should not be understood as a homage to a person who always rejected such endeavors, but rather as an appreciation of an unusual idea, namely income-generating measures for people in rural areas, based on traditional culture and using local resources, and highlighting the selflessness of the project. This stands in complete contrast to the prevailing and increasingly growing global effort towards equalization of all cultures, discounting the fact that they are the real wealth of a country. Wealth is irrevocably lost in the onslaught of technology euphorics.

Senta Siller has worked in different positions and countries throughout her life. In more than 75 years of activity, she has met countless people, a large number of whom can no longer be interviewed. In this writing, however, a few voices were able to have their say, in which they fondly remember their encounters with this unusual woman, not only in her doll-making projects.

Rarely do we meet people who are unselfishly active for society's benefit.

The present publication intends to stimulate the reader in the undertaking, in the sense of making a certain effort, even if everything else speaks against it, - all for the welfare of the general public, even if such projects, as initiated by SSi and implemented with the help of many volunteers, are directed completely opposite to the global and digital mainstream.

The editors would like to thank all the people, organizations, and institutions involved who have supported and continue to support the work and ideas of SSi.

Labels: Senta Siller, SSi

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 5:07 PM, ,

Handicrafts From Cameroon 2022
Friday, October 7, 2022

Labels: CAT - Bamenda, DGFK e V Berlin, Lum Theresia, Senta Siller, Stella Pachon, Tanto mejor - Saboya, Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka, Thatta Kedona

posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3:51 PM, ,