Mind the Fungi

Today material research is a central point in the theory and practice of designing new technologies, in cooperation with art and design. These fields are currently collaborating, merging their knowledge and practice to develop a new generation of materials, by focusing on specific characteristics, to create new environmentally friendly materials. Another approach, however, has also arisen in the last years combining making, crafting and personal fabrication of new materials through a form of Do It Yourself (DIY) biology and craftmaking.

Fara Peluso, Material Driven Design Workshop, livestream, May 2020

Fara Peluso, Material Driven Design Workshop, livestream, May 2020

Fara Peluso, Material Driven Design Workshop, livestream, May 2020

Fara Peluso and Regine Rapp in conversation, Material Driven Design Workshop, livestream, May 2020

This Mind the Fungi workshop discusses the new material driven design movement and methodology, learning how to build a new material by studying and using a living organism like mycelium. Discovering the features, possibilities and limits of mycelium-based materials, the participants will work together growing material and developing new material, building sculptures, assembling DIY packaging and drawing and cutting patterns on a new material made of biofilm.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis the initial workshop has been postponed and on 6 May a livestream talk and workshop with Fara Peluso took place.

Fara Peluso, a Berlin based artist-designer, graduated in industrial design and graphic design at University of Spienza, Deptm. for Architecture, Rome. Through speculative research her work connects the human being with nature, living organisms and biological processes to form a deeper relationship. Together with biologists, she has pursued deep research into algae, taking constantly inspiration from them, experimenting and understanding how to work with them inside the fields of Art and Design. In collaboration with BioArt Laboratories in Eindhoven, she developed the prototyping of a speculative wearable accessory, WeaReactor, which connects the algae’s photosynthesis process with the breath of the wearer (exhibited at DDW17 in Eindhoven in 2017; at Art Laboratory Berlin in 2019). Peluso has extended this knowledge over the last 15 months by working with researchers at the TU Berlin Institute of Biotechnology on mycelium-based materials as an artist-designer-in-residence in the project Mind the Fungi.