Open Costume Lab

What you will do

A costume made from a mushroom? A mask with the scent of Dahlias, or face paints as a water bear? Our costume lab is a makerspace in which designers, students and audience members can make costumes and masks. Different workstations with sewing machines, glue guns, staplers and loads and loads of material allows passers-by, students and others to create a costume and disguise themselves as another species. For a whole week there will be room for experiment and design research where you can shed your human skin and transform into various non-human species through fabric and other materials.

Your design in the DIY-guide

Our ultimate goal is to "hack" the real carnival 2022 with as many biodiversity costumes as possible. We want to activate a big group of people to dress up as an 'inhuman species' during the festivities and help in raising awareness for the biodiversity of our planet. To give this project a good kickstart and to inspire more people we will create a DIY-guide to inhuman carnaval. The craziest, most beautiful, original, outstanding and inspiring costumes and techniques that will be created in the lab, will be published in the guide. Maybe your design will make it to the guide too!

Inhuman Carnaval

This open costume lab is part of Inhuman Carnaval. An ongoing program at Natlab (and beyond) in which we practice letting go of anthropocentric thinking and celebrate biodiversity by dressing up as non-human species. The program includes workshops from renowned fashion designers, art exhibitions, performances, film screenings, lectures, parties and more. Join!