Supported: Myco Design Lab

Sep 1

The open call for the Myco-design Lab invited artist and designers to research new material and artistic applications for the Schizophyllum commune; a commonly found mushroom with fan, or coral shaped gills which grows on decaying trees. At that moment the field of fungal bio-material development was just gaining ground, with the studio's of both Mauricio Montalti and Phill Ross being at the fore front of these bio-based developments.

The Myco-Design Lab, which combined the collaborative effort of art-centre Mediamatic, fungal design studio Officina Corpuscoli and the microbiology lab of the Utrecht University - started with an extensive Clean Room workshop where we were introduced to DIY-wetlab practices as well as basic microbiology techniques. After which we continued our curiosity driven research into this living matter.

Within the project I teamed up with and graphic designer, chef and laboratory research technician Marieke Broertjes - with whom I shared a love for experimenting, paper and cooking.

Due to Marieke's employment at Mediamatic - as a the coördinator of the BioLab, she also contributed to the development of some DIY recipes for Fungal Designers.

Areas of focus: