Louisa & Tusnelda
Album

Tusnelda (left) and Louisa (right) are two giant textile characters, who were created in a playful dialogue between two handicraft groups from Lichtenberg, East Berlin. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The dialogue between the two handicraft groups followed the game called exquisite corpse. The image here illustrates the idea: body parts are created by different people - in our case the two handicraft groups. One group continues the work of the other and the resulting characters have an element of surprise and features from both groups. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The starting point of the characters was an inflatable beach ball. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The balls were turned into heads. Here the hairstyle of Louisa is being planned at our group in the refugee home. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The skin was crocheted and carefully attached over the ball. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Developing the face of Louisa. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Attaching all the elements. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Meanwhile Louisa was being created, the Kreative Hände group worked on Tusnelda's head. They were into reycling and the perfect material for the skin was an old underskirt. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Positioning the red lips. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Each group wrote a letter to accompany their head before it was transported to the other group. The letter told who the character was. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Here Louisa has been received by Kreative Hände and they're planning the upper body. Sewer pipes came in handy for holding the giant head. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Louisa's massive hair was on the way when working on the upper body, but otherwise she was easy-going during the body construction. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Louisa's finished upper body. She's dressed up all fancy, as she has apparently received an invitation to a party. The elegant, white shirt is made of an old table cloth. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

At the other group Tusnelda also got a sturdy upper body. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

It was handy to have couple of people holding her when dressing up. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Tusnelda's jacket turned out cool with her name and 'hello kitty' on the back. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The giant characters had to always wait on top of the shelf before being transported to their next body expansion session. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Couple of younger crafters in our group made personal items for the characters, which were stored in their handbags. Here's Louisa's ID. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Since Louisa works as a security guard at the 'Heim', which is maintained by a charity organisation called Volkssolidarität, she also got an appropriate badge with the Volkssolidarität logo. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The hip and buttocks of Louisa. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Attaching the hip in place. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Leg design. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Fitting the giant pants. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Louisa also got black fake leather boots with golden ornaments. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

At this point the characters started grow so big that we had to sometimes lay them down. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Tusnelda also got dark blue trousers and an old pillow as a hip. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Fitting the lower body. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Although Tusnelda is quite cool and hip, she got proper Ecco shoes - and glitter socks. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

The giant hand of Tusnelda - she likes to lift hand weights. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Tusnelda also needed a bag for her accessories... / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

...such as make up. / CC BY Kati Hyyppä

Last but not least we made some items for the exhibition, such as a cover for Louisa's thermos. So much detail and so much fun! / CC BY Kati Hyyppä