PopUp Maker Event & Closing Reception: "zusammen:schrauben – A Culture of Repair and Making"

The exhibition “zusammen:schrauben – A Culture of Repair and Making” has toured Germany for more than four years, raising awareness of repair and DIY in countless locations, encouraging visitors to get involved and reflect, and demonstrating how important it is to be able to “roll up your sleeves” and get stuck in.

On 28 May 2026, the exhibition will be presented for the final time at CoLab/Startblock B2 in Cottbus. In addition to the exhibition, there will be activities encouraging DIY, such as a Repair Café, an upcycling workshop and a clothes and goods swap party. Visitors are welcome to bring along any kind of (broken) item to repair or swap on the spot.

The event also marks the launch of a new structural change project: CoLab is becoming the centre of LausitzLabs! A new real-world laboratory for socio-ecological transformation in Lusatia. Here, science, practice and civil society come together to jointly develop innovative solutions for a sustainable future. The focus is on experiments, collaborations and new forms of knowledge exchange that actively shape change on the ground.

About the exhibition ‘zusammen:schrauben – A Culture of Repair and Making’
Repairing and DIY – in today’s age of cheap mass production and chronic time shortages, that sounds pretty crazy. And yet they exist: the people who tinker in their hobby rooms, spend hours discussing welding techniques with others in open workshops, or take care of Aunt Erna’s old record player at the Repair Café. What motivates people to repair and make things themselves? What do they experience when they get their hands dirty and take consumer goods apart and put them back together again? And how does this change their relationship with consumption and the objects of their everyday lives? These and other questions formed the starting point for the Repara/kul/tur research project, the findings of which are presented in this exhibition.