Index

My documentation¶

This is my documentation website for the fabricademy programm 2026/2027.

About me¶

I'm a former fashion designer and a a self taught science communicator, material researcher and biodesigner, also a futures (over)thinker, a maker, project manager, FabLab team member, an old crafts-lover and an always curious adhd-squirrel, willing to start a PhD, but never finding the time, the one topic and the right moment to start. I sometimes feel like sitting between the chairs, doing all and nothing at the same time - a juggler that somehow keeps all the balls up in the air, but never knows how and feels more struggling than juggling. Instead, I'd like to become a weaver, finding the right weft thread and pattern to weave beautiful patterns out of all those wonderful little warp threads.

My background¶

Even as a child I was fascinated by many things. As the daughter of a master furrier and a telecommunications technician I loved as much working with textiles (sewing, weaving, crocheting..) as I loved programming little games on my fathers pocket computer and at the same time doing experiments and exploring everything that was crawling and creeping around me.

Previous work¶

Fashion Design¶

In another live, round the year 2010, I studied focused on my love for textiles and studied fashion design. Every new semester I could learn how to deep dive in new topics and giving their essence a shape and bringing it into live, a skill that I still use a lot in my work as a science communicator. After starting a small goth brand called "KrankHaft" with my wonderful fellow student Lisa Dominicus, I was craving for more, wanted to focus more on sustainability and studied "Creative Direction". Ater a short time at an industrial fashion brand, I finally quitted the fashion industry.

01 Lisa Dominicus & Julia Krayer, "KrankHaft", Photos: David Höpfner;
02 Julia Krayer, "Suspense is like a woman" sketches;
03 Julia Krayer, "Suspense is like a woman", Photos: Jaemin Kim;
04 Screenshot from Hitchcocks "Birds";
05 Julia Krayer, "Bamboo garden", print from a scanned woven textile;
06 Julia Krayer, "Bamboo garden", Photos: Sebastian Schulz;
07 翠云付 via pexels

Biodesign and Science communication¶

My mindset changed more and more since then. My so loved material leather was not an option anymore, as I turned vegetarian and the fashion industry with all it's negative effects was not my home anymore. It was that time, that I stumbled upn the book "BIODESIGN" from William Myers. It became the book became my personal bible. Having tried to work with bacterial cellulose, after I saw the work of Suzanne Lee, I know learned about things like mushroom materials, root bridges and grown lace from plant roots. Starting my at the graduate programm Heterotopia for transisciplinary design at Folkwang University of arts and getting the chance to work at Fraunhofer UMSICHT, I found a world, where I fitted in. I started to work as a makerspace manager, building up an open biolab, startet mushroom material research, founded with teammates the Innovative Citizen Festival, was part of the phantastic Fraunhofer Network for art, design and science, got the opportunity to educate and inspire students and, in all that, had the chance to work with wonderful people like Natsay Audrey Chieza, Lina Vieres or Judith Schanz. Since then, now at Hochschule Ruhr West, the connection between art, design, science, makerscene and society is my playfield in different science communication formats like workshops, futures thinking, micro-expeditions, exhibitions, festival and whatever will come around next.

Find me online¶

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