Sometimes it’s pebbles, corks, scraps of fabric or stray buttons that quietly pile up in jars, collected without intention or meaning. In Prägung, Max Brück delves into this deeply human impulse – to keep, to hoard, to save things for later – and follows its many social expressions through different systems into the present day. On site, medals are cast from shredded textile waste, evoking both past practices of reuse and our current culture of consumption.
The exhibition takes place at Leipzig’s former cotton spinning mill, once a key site of GDR textile production – a place where cycles of material and reuse were shaped by political and economic innovation pressure. In Prägung, this industrial legacy intersects with today’s textile issues: the materials originate from German clothing donation bins, shredded in the artist’s studio – a flow of matter driven by the good intentions of consumers.
Though we take comfort in the idea that our discarded clothes will be put to good use, the reality is often obscured. Many garments are incinerated or exported to countries in the Global South, disrupting local markets and putting pressure on ecosystems.
The medals created in Prägung celebrate the instinct to collect, while also problematizing it. What once ensured survival – the need to hold on to resources – has become the engine of overconsumption. Prägung invites us to reconsider the interplay between need, resource, and system.
