Natsai Audrey Chieza works at the intersection of biology and design, and wants to show how living organisms can make sustainable materials

Silk dyed as part of Project Coelicolor

Toby Coulson

Designer Natsai Audrey Chieza has an unusual creative partner: the soil-dwelling bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. Under the right conditions, S. coelicolor produces a pigmented compound, which Chieza uses to dye fabric and garments in patterned hues of pink, purple and blue. “It dyes textiles in a colourfast manner with barely any water and no chemicals,” Chieza says. “In many ways, that's the definition of a natural dye.”

Chieza has been working with her “companion species” since 2011 and this year launched Faber Futures, a London-based biodesign lab that aims to help other researchers and companies harness the power of living organisms to develop their own sustainable materials. “Project Coelicolor is a great way to say, ‘This is what we did with this micro-organism; let us help you figure out what to do with yours,’” she says

Regardless the industry, Chieza hopes that biodesign can lead the way to more sustainable means of production, helping manufacturers to shift away from petroleum-based materials, divest from fossil fuels and reduce waste. With Faber Futures, she is also keen to develop an ethical framework for working with living organisms. “If we can engineer life, that means science has become a design space," she says.

Celebrity fashion collaborations do not get much bigger than Rihanna and Puma in The Fenty x Puma collection for 2018. Leveraging her edginess and laconic style the collection is a blend of streetwear and extreme sports. Heavily influenced by surf and motocross sports with bright saturated pops of colours, high vis neons, sports buckles and toggles with retro-themed graphics.

Continuing the theme around future synthetic cosmetics and beauty care, Lucy Mcrae has released her latest film in collaboration with Nowness exploring her swallowable parfum concept. Similarly to Amy Congdon the relationship between synthetic biology and cosmetics is a growing area of exploration for designers and scientist. As Lucy describes in her accompanying interview , “We are living in an era of no rules; technology is corrupting nature’s ballot, forcing us to redefine our bodies’ limitations and boundaries,” Lucy believes that in the not too distant future we will be eating our cosmetics to enhance our skin luminosity, colour and scent.  

Speculative designer Amy Congdon considers a future where biotechnology will give designers a new set of materials and tools to work with. Believing that future materials will be grown from cells she suggests a range of jewellery that is grown from our bones, skin and cartilage. Envisioning a future 2082 her ‘Bio Nouveau’ collection replaces cosmetic surgery with tissue engineered disposable biological atelier pieces. In order to care for these semi living body adornments she has created a fictional range of body care products that include Graft Moisturiser & tone, SynSkin treatment and Graft Aftercare and Bioskin glue.

Textile student Ejing Zhang explores materiality through craft, colour and process. Graduating from the Royal College of Art from the school of materials with a masters in Mixed media textiles, her material explorations made from bamboo, cast resin, peach wood and wrapped thread have a beautiful and delicate quality to them. Collated into a collection titled 'Moonrise' she has explored Chinese craftsmanship and modern day manufacturing techniques that resulted in a series of beautiful objects such as a lunch box as well as bracelets and handbags.

She also collaborated with another student to create a 3D printed tote bag.

There are a lot of designers, architects and restaurants that are going back to nature and exploring nature in new ways, but taking a really fresh approach to nature, sustainability and design is Moe Nagata who is soon to graduate from the Textiles Futures Ma. Her project was inspired by ancient tribal based craft design that was rooted in animism and a symbiotic relationship with nature. Traditional tribes hunted for food and then used every last piece of the animal to make products such as teeth necklaces.

Nagata has taken that consideration into a very modern look with her From Creatures collection that uses the natural materials discarded from the fishing industry. Using shells and bones she has given them a surprising twist using laser cutting, dyeing and printing.

Craft and artisanal design explorations have been gaining favour for many seasons now and the hand of the maker does not seem to be abating, it is infact even more interestingly evolving with the hand of the machine too and creating entirely new aesthetics. Recognising this and seeing the importance in the 'art of the maker' is the current exhibition Hand Made: long live crafts at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Holland.

Interestingly the exhibition carefully puts at the centre the notion of the hand crafted myth of imperfection and one offs to try to contextualise craft in the modern day.

Showcasing pieces from the middle ages to the modern day they have curated the objects in seven sections: Crafsmanship, Honesty, Art, Tradition, Unicity, Virtuosity and Handicrafts.

Amongst the pieces on show are the modern day Dutch craftspeople such as Iris van Herpen with her digitally crafted garments and Studio Job.

There are also a series of videos accompanying the exhibition that can be viewed here.

Hand Made Long Live Crafts runs until May 20th

Transnatural are showcasing their latest exhibition titled 'Still Unidentified Objects' which as the name suggests explores unidentified forms of collaboration between man, machine and nature. Showcasing her Emotional Dialogue video, Svenja Jeune questions real and artificial, textile and nature with her communicating textile forms that transform and morph as they detect the emotional mood of the viewer. The well documented Energy Collection from Marjan van Aubel is also shown and fits nicely with the messages from Transnatural to do with harvesting energy from natural sources be it in her case food, or in the case of Trap light, via sun light.

The brilliant Thomas Vailly is also showing his work that explores our mortality and the reality of the waste that we leave behind such as hair whilst the slightly disconcerting living organism dress 'Like living organisms' is a skin dress that expresses excitement and emotion between two people when they first meet.

Open until 1st July at Workspace, Lijnbaansgracht 148a Amsterdam.

http://vimeo.com/43997522#at=0