The Fork and Broom Press

„Crafts meets Culture“ is a joined projekt of the districts of Herford and Minden-Lübbecke – sponsored by Northrhine-Westphalia. Cultural coordinators currently are Niklas Bengtsson (for Herford) and Daniela Daus (für Minden-Lübbecke). Contributions and details can be found on the respective website at: https://www.muehlenkreis.de/Kultur-Projekte/HANDWERK-TRIFFT-KULTUR/?&La=1

One main topic within this project currently is why and how joung people take up old crafts. This obviously both gave good reason and made perfect sense to send Eike Hollermann (Sound) and Michael Trappmann (Photos) heading to Oppenwehe and making them produce a podcast – with Almuth being a joung person staying as a journeywoman at the studio and letterpress being a pretty old craft – some several hundreds years of age plus cultural heritage.

Almuth had been staying two weeks as a „journey woman for letterpress“ at The Fork and Broom Press. Eike and Michael were just in time with it being the last-but-one day of Almuth‘s stay. At this point composing, printing and sorting back type had been completed already. Still on the list was the booknbinding part with cutting to size, folding, pressing and sewing the printed work. The next day Almuth would pamphlet stitch the folded and pressed sections, and then pack to leave.

 

To begin with Eike had us bugged, i. e. he fixed tiny portable microphones to our clothing. Then we got started straight away with a tour of the printroom.

The podcast will be online from 4 September 2023 at: https://www.muehlenkreis.de/Kultur-Projekte/HANDWERK-TRIFFT-KULTUR/Podcast/

(In German)

All images by Michael Trappmann

Thank you Almuth, Eike, Michael and Niklas Bengtsson – it was a fabulous experience to work with all of you on this project!