Prof Dr Heike Derwanz is a junior professor at the Institute of Material Culture at the University of Oldenburg and head of the project. Through her post-doctoral position in the Hamburg research project "Low-Budget Urbanity: On the Transformation of the Urban under the Primacy of Saving"(www.low-budget-urbanity.de) at HafenCity University Hamburg, she became aware of minimalists, some of whom specifically deal with their clothing differently by consuming less. She was also interested in people who want to live and work differently in her master's thesis on young people at the time of reunification at the University of Bremen and her doctoral thesis on street artists and their careers on the international art and design markets. As a junior professor of material culture, she asks herself whether textile minimalists are pioneers for a more sustainable approach to clothing and what strategies we can learn from them.

Niklas Reinken is a research assistant in the project. He is assisting with the coordination and editing of the final publication "The Minimalism Reader. Interdisciplinary perspectives on a contemporary phenomenon". His non-specialist background helps him here: he is a linguist by training and is doing his doctorate in the field of German linguistics on manuscripts - in a broader sense, this is about how and by what means language can become 'material'. He is able to view the content of the interdisciplinary publication from an external perspective.

FORMER

Verena Strebinger worked as a research assistant on the project and conducted field research in German-speaking countries with minimalists and people interested in minimalism. She visited many Minimalism get-togethers and conferences and conducted interviews and participant observations. She studied Cultural Studies and Transcultural Studies at the University of Bremen, during which time she already engaged with minimalism as a lifestyle, both personally and academically. In her master's thesis, she focussed on the connection between the reduction of possessions and flexible living space concepts. For her, minimalism is a way of taking responsibility for the impact of one's own actions on other living beings and the environment.

Hannah Evers completed a research internship in the project from 1 October 2018 to 5 May 2019 to get to know the practical research work and science management.

Cheyenne Lauterbach, Luca Punke and Anne Biella supported us as student assistants.