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Microbial Oasis
Project by Shijia Huang
RenderingIn a world increasingly affected by climate change, Shijia Huang’s work reminds us of life’s invisible architects—microorganisms—and their essential role in maintaining ecological balance. Shijia, a designer and artist based in London and Beijing, merges her expertise in architecture with interactive art to explore the delicate relationships between humans and microbes. Her project envisions a future of harmonious coexistence, using human bone tissue as a unique building material to create sanctuaries for bacteria and algae.
This microbial architecture highlights the often-overlooked balance microorganisms provide, from nutrient cycling to climate stability, inviting us to rethink our connection to these vital, unseen neighbors. Just as microbes influence our health, they are key to keeping ecosystems resilient. Imagine contributing to nature by supporting these essential organisms—an act of giving back that nurtures biodiversity and fosters mutual flourishing.
Graduation project from @mabiodesign
Presented by @nextnaturemuseum during @dutchdesignweek 2024
MELWEAR
Maca Barrera
As our planet faces an increase in solar UV radiation due to climate change, the need for effective photoprotection has never been more critical. The rising risks of sunburn, photoaging, and cancer, coupled with the environmental harm caused by conventional sunscreens to marine ecosystems, call for innovative solutions.
Enter Maca Barrera's Melwear, a speculative project blending design and science to offer a biomimicry-based solution against UV radiation.
Melwear features a 'second skin' that utilises bacterial melanin's natural UV absorbance, activating and darkening upon UV exposure. This innovative approach provides dynamic protection tailored to environmental conditions, significantly reducing potential skin damage.
Maca Barrera's research stands out with its integration of interactive wearable technology, adapting bacterial melanin concentrations for personalised sun protection based on skin type and geographic location.
In an era shaped by climate crisis concerns, Melwear presents a glimpse into the future of UV protection and underscores the importance of balancing human health with ecological sustainability.
Melwear was developed as a graduation project for the Masters in Biodesign programme at Central Saint Martins.
The project received support from the Making Lab team at the Francis Crick Institute.
@mbio_studio
https://ualshowcase.arts.ac.uk/project/477855/cover
Video
Nicole Hakim, Deji Awe,
Christopher Bellamy, Maca Barrera
Other Matter - Jessie French
In the vibrant city of Naarm, also known as Melbourne, Jessie French is an artist and experimental designer deeply connected to nature and driven by conscious consumption, sustainability, and regeneration. She leads us into a future where algae's potential is harnessed, showing how we can create a world of reusing materials and appreciating the fleeting nature of objects. Through her work, she encourages us to reflect on the environmental impacts of our choices and offers a blueprint for sustainable living, all with the help of newly cultivated algae.
FEATURED DESIGNER & RESEARCHER
Jessie French
@frenchjessie
Other Matter
@other_matter
Film
Studio visit video
By Credit Three Five Films
Automating Violacein Collection
by Charlotte Werth
2023
The biological world holds many solutions to our environmental textile challenges. For the past decade we have witnessed the development of promising new microbial dyes, now reaching commercial scale.
There are 2 types of bacteria currently used to develop alternative textile dyes: wild type (found in the natural environment) or genetically engineered for improved performance. Either of these types can be used to biofabricate coloured pigments via a fermentation process in a bioreactor. In the case of more artisanal creative approach, the bacteria can also be grown directly onto cloth to create a range of patterning effects. Either process requires sterilisation to remove any live organisms from the resulting coloured pigments. Microbial research has evidenced clear environmental benefits in comparison with synthetic dyes. They can lead to significant water savings, as well as energy and chemical reduction. They are also biodegradable and can work across fibre types (cellulose, keratin or synthetic) without the need for toxic mordanting.
For textile designers, the application of bacterial colour onto cloth is more than an environmentally beneficial technical process, it is a new platform for creativity. Every new technique calls for imaginative applications. This is the focus of the collection Automating Violacein designed and produced by Charlotte Werth for the design residency 2023 at Maison/0.
The project stems from Charlotte Werth’s graduation project on MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins UAL where she developed a bacterial printing machine. For the residency, Charlotte has explored further the potential of this automated technique to develop a range of printed textiles with Janthinobacterium lividum, a wild type soil-dwelling bacterium. The machine is designed to slowly move fabrics through a live bacterial bath, pausing long enough to allow for pigment depositing. The nutrient bath includes yeast extract, salt, protein and glucose. A low-energy built-in UV lighting system sterilises the cloth as it comes in the main chamber, thus removing the need for high energy autoclaving process. The same sterilisation process is in place as the fabric exits the machine to remove any live active bacteria. What is left is the colour traces created by Janthinobacterium lividum. By playing with folding, pleating, resist techniques and multiple dye run throughs, Charlotte has created a variety of patterns. The fabrics used for this collection come from luxury deadstock (silk, silk-viscose blend, wool) procured by Nona Source.
Maison/0 is the Central Saint Martins LVMH creative platform for regenerative luxury. Our mission is to prototype emergent and disruptive design concepts that can lead to the restoration of planetary health. With this design residency research project, we aim to leverage the agency of creativity to augment the potential of nature-positive bio-active processes.
Photography: Paul Cochrane
Film Director: Maël Hénaff
Retracing the coffee bag
by Rosana Escobar, Alexander Marinus & Sanne Muiser.
Designers Rosana Escobar, Alexander Marinus and Sanne Muiser are passionate about natural fibres and are collaborating on Retracing the Coffee Bag research.
Plant fibres, fique and jute, are used to produce coffee bags in their place of origin. For example, coffee bags from America are made from fique, an agave plant from the Andes. Coffee bags from Asia and Africa are made from jute, mainly from India and Bangladesh.
The valuable material serves only to transport the coffee; after this unique function, these bags/fibres end up in Europe and become a waste stream of high-quality natural material. Due to the European desire for coffee, millions of bags of coffee arrive in Europe yearly, and empty bags are discarded.
The designer trio present their research with a live lab and exhibition during Dutch Design Week 2022, where they explore the possibilities of fique and jute and the needle-felting technique.
Retracing the Coffee Bag is supported by Worth Project Partnership.
Solar Solace
Solar Shirt designed by Pauline van Dongen
Video by J R Hammond / Hammond Images Animated by Michiel Verweij
Made in collaboration with Holst Centre
“The shirt seamlessly incorporates 120 thin film solar cells that are combined into modules using Holst Centre’s stretchable printed electronics, thus allowing the wearer to generate energy and charge devices on the go. These modules are laminated onto the fabric using a heat press technique, thereby fully merging the solar cells with the textile. Working with printed electronics gave the freedom to more playfully place the cells on the shirt. The solar cells are used as a graphic pattern, making the technology an aesthetic and distinct feature of the design. The video shows the Solar Shirt in its daily use, while being worn by our friends. As they all wear it in their own way, they portray our vision of wearable technology as something that soon will become normative and will offer us new experiences.”
Kadans 2.0
By Aliki van der Kruijs & Jos Klarenbeek
Aliki van der Kruijs is a designer and researcher working primarily with textiles. Her deep interest in climate and geology strongly inspires her textile work, presenting environmental data about a specific area and landscape. The Dutch designer has developed an archive of rain-made fabrics with patterns produced with the help of rainy conditions. In addition, she made a series of fabrics using atmosphere and contextual research as input for colour and material collections.
Jos Klarenbeek is a mathematician with a multidisciplinary approach to object creation. He has gathered planetary datasets from NASA and the European Space Agency to make custom maps for his research projects — from the dairy production chain to global temperature charts.
Aliki and Jos had been compiling environmental and textile data for years before they met. Together, the two designers developed the ongoing project Kadans 2.0 in 2017.
Kadans 2.0 is a research project that examines how the sea's motion can be a direct source for an ever-changing weaving pattern. The project sprouts from a shared curiosity for invisible natural processes and uses them as a source of information to develop patterns and materials. Textile production is combined with sciences, including oceanography and mathematics, constructing a soft output of hard data generated by the motions of waves at sea.
Featured project by @alikivanderkruijs & @jos___klarenbeek
https://kadanskadans.com/
http://www.alikivanderkruijs.com/
https://www.josklarenbeek.nl/
Film
Film and Edition @millkproductions
Soundscape by Luísa Puterman
Photography @lonnekevanderpalen
Identity by @blacktropik
Software by @rndr.studio
Natural Materials Studio
Bonnie Hvillum
Designer Bonnie Hvillum is the founder of Natural Materials Studio, where she works with circular design principles - reuse, recycle, renew & rethink. The Copenhagen-based studio's research transforms waste into valuable materials.
Shellware
In collaboration with restaurants Noma (DK) and Esben Kaldahl (DK), Bonnie developed Shellware ceramics from shell waste. The designer creates new expressions, surfaces, and textures by exploring this discarded material's limitations and opportunities.
"From the shells that I received from (restaurant) Noma, the scallop shells were the ones that contained the most calcium oxide", explains the Danish designer.
Bonnie Hvillum creates a base material similar to the bone ash used to make bone china. After exposure to intense heat, the calcined shells were finely ground to a powder and mixed with natural elements to support the clay body.
The calcination of the shells by heating them also reabsorbs carbon dioxide, making the process carbon neutral.
Copywriter & Author
Austin Sailsbury
@austinsailsbury
Video Photographer
Lars Hauschildt
@lars.hauschildt
Kindly supported by @statenskunstfond
INFO
https://naturalmaterialstudio.com/
https://www.instagram.com/natural.material.studio/
Mimosa Memory
By Signe Emdal
Charlottenborg Forårsudstilling 2020
Signe Emdal is a Danish conceptual textile artist and colour alchemist. She has the uncanny ability to visualise connective structures and draw deep threads between the past and future in subtle and organic ways.
She captures details and expresses them through poetic textile artworks and tapestries.
Emdal also works as a colour and structure designer and enjoys mixing elements of textile genres, hence connecting our world heritage textile roots with contemporary visions.
“Mimosa Memory is inspired by the delicate fragility of the mimosa flower and tree. One single touch will destroy the sensitive flower. Same goes for my newly invented material, one single touch of the surface, will destroy the original artwork and leave a permanent mark. Nature is sensitive.
My workspace and the energetic sensations of spaces effects my choice of colors, effects my breath, my inner vision, my ambience, my physical body. In this project I explore how my artwork will grow on the loom, if I arrange an intimate personal workspace inside of a curated art show. The audience will then witness my process live during the 5 weeks of the show”
Film & Photography
Theis Mortensen
UPCOMING
2022 HOMO FABER/ Biennale for master artisanship in Venice
By invitation from curator Sebastian Herkner. Funded by Statens Kunstfond
INFO
http://emdalstudio.com/
https://www.instagram.com/emdalstudio/
Angel Chang
Angel’s journey to the villages
Angel Chang is an artisanal womenswear line using traditional handwoven fabrics of the indigenous Miao and Dong ethnic minority tribes in Guizhou province, rural China.
Angel works closely with masters of rural mountain villages where families have maintained all-natural, chemical-free traditional processes. The fabrics are made from locally-grown organic raw materials and foraged plants native to the mountains.
Get to know more about the designer and the brand in the Plural Magazine article.
Director
Jonathon Lim
Additional Filming
Wang Hui
Camera Assistant
Dan Agha-Rafei
Music
“Goodbye Friends” by Tom Day
Location
China
Paper Skin
by Hiroki Furukawa
Film by
Takurai
Music
Inspirational summer by ANtarcticbreeze
Model
Yumi Uchida
Location
Japan
BUAISOU
In Japan, the process of drying and fermenting indigo leaves is known as "sukumo". This process is carried out to the highest quality in Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku. With the desire to preserve the traditional Japanese craftsmanship BUAISOU, an indigo farm and dye studio was established in Kamiita-cho, Tokushima Prefecture in 2015.
Director/Cinematography/Editor
Taigo Kawaguchi (kawaguchifilm)
Music
Ayako Taniguchi
Drone
Engawa Corporation
2020
Location
Japan
©️BUAISOU, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
BUAISOU Article
Bound Magazine presents Adriana Meunie
Film by
Antonina Obrador
Produced by
iamlimon.tv
2020
Location
Spain
Form of Memory - The life and work of Mitch Iburg
Film by
Sage Culture
Nicolas Alonso & Marina Figueiredo
2018
Location
USA
“The content of my work is synonymous with the setting in which it is made. By investigating the natural clay deposits, mineral resources, and geological expressions inherent to specific regions, I seek to create work that combines the physiological substance and emotional characteristics of place to form an expression of its terroir. As a result, each body of work conveys a historical record of my surroundings as well as a reflection of my identity as being rooted in that geographical location.”
Form of Memory is a short documentary portraying the artist Mitch Iburg and his fascinating work process.
The short documentary has also been selected for the 2019 Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival
Mitch Iburg works
Hala Kaiksow
The Travelling Loom
Film by
Sergio Miranda
Location
Bahrain
Fashion designer, artist and sculptor, Hala Kaiksow uses her technical knowledge to experiment and explore the infinite possibilities of building garments. By considering clothing as a sculpture developing around the female body, she can creatively expand the common understanding of a garment.
Hala’s varied sources of inspiration range from the ancient nomadic clothing of the Berbers to the costumes of the Tuareg tribes and the traditional Barhani uniforms that reflect the richness of Islamic tradition. In her work, it is possible to identify the juxtaposition between the Eastern and Western worlds.
Hala Kaiksow Article
Âmago - The essence of time
Domingos Tótora
Film by
Sage Culture
Nicolas Alonso and Marina Figueiredo
Music by
André Geraissati
Text
Sage Culture
Location
Brazil
“Domingos’s creations are emotions in movement.”