Project

Contributing to the field of biodesign, this PhD research investigates the design potentials of mycelium materials for Living Fungal Artifacts (LFA).

Living Aesthetics is a biodesign principle that examines the way humans experience living artefacts over time – for example, a living artefact’s gradual or immediate change in colour, form, or function, which offer novel responsive behaviour and interaction possibilities in design. Wasabii uses the term Fungal Encounters to refer to the everyday encounters between living mycelium materials and nonliving elements (i.e., abiotic) in the context of use.

Fungal Encounters leverages on livingness as an ecological and social phenomenon, emphasising a reciprocal relationship between humans and living materials, where abiotic elements within a context can help surface these relationships in the experience of these materials. In this way, Living Fungal Interfaces can reflect ways of living and doing in the everyday (without a need of digital elements) and can help elicit novel practices for the wellbeing of humans and living materials alike.

In recent years, an increased concern for designing to mitigate environmental crises suggests a more regenerative production paradigm as a vision for a different future. Within the expanding field of biodesign, collaborations with living organisms such as algae, fungi, bacteria, and plants are being explored to co-create artefacts. Our experiments raise inherent questions about care, reciprocity, and ethics. This PhD research addresses environmental and social crises by highlighting the invisible fabric and network of microorganisms, which leads us to design new methods of/for care, re-inventing industrial processes and foregrounding socio and cultural practices.