by Austin Chia, Leyi Guo, Mantis Harper-Blanco, Katherine Luna, Maia Malakoff, Nadia Nazar, Jingwen Zhang
How can we practice care with our collaborators and with each other to craft resilient symbiotic communities?
Craft and biodesign share a common origin as responses to times of struggle through modes of production and expression. Symbiotic Stitches is our response to the challenge we face as a society to address the multidimensional ecological problems we have created and now attempt to control.
As artists, we have inherited a long and rich legacy of quilting. It is within our familial heritage to create and quilt. With its many disparate pieces stitched together, the quilt is a symbol of community. Biomaterials have a welcome place here. Moreover, quilting groups are an active practice of community, where people talk and bond while working together.
As learned in our quilting group, we practice care with our collaborators in the lab—mycelium, slime mold, and lichen. We endeavor to support and learn from them, not simply extract from them. We focus on elements of regeneration to repair and mend. Our biomaterial quilt embodies the perseverance living in all of us.
How can we practice care with our collaborators and each other to craft resilient symbiotic communities? In our bio-quilting group, we are generating a language between the human and more-than-human world. Come talk and work with us as we answer this question together.
Our Quilt:
Our Process:
Enter the MICA Quilt Group’s Raffle to win a quilt! Raffle tickets go towards scholarships for BIPOC Students.
Mycelium Self Regeneration Research
Article Reference:
Elise Elsacker, Meng Zhang, and Martyn Dade‐Robertson. “Fungal Engineered Living Materials: The Viability of Pure Mycelium Materials with Self‐Healing Functionalities.” Advanced Functional Materials 33, no. 29 (July 2023): 2301875. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202301875.
Experiments to test the Self regenerative Properties of Ganoderma Lucidum:
All mycelium samples were pressed with hemp, and damaged with a sterile scalpel. The diameter of the hole/damage was approximately ½ inch~. All Experiments were replicated twice.
All 6 well plates got contaminated, however, all the samples with hemp grew an extra layer of biomass. The samples without hemp did not grow as fervently and did not appear to grow an extra layer of biomass, but rather were in the beginning stages of growth. Malt Extract Broth samples showed more growth over the H2o samples.
The majority of our samples in the quilt, with this research, could then be regenerated after being exposed to damage.
Lichen Dyeing: Orchil, Lungwort, & Umbilicaria
Sample tests of Orchil Lichen Dye.
- Lichens contain acids that make it possible to extract dye from.
- We fermented Orchil and Umbilicaria in an ammonia solution for a few months to achieve purple hues.
- We started to test the dye on fabric as early as five weeks. After our first experimentation tests to successfully bond the dye to the fabric, we proceeded to dye our mycelium patches.
- Despite its hydrophobic qualities mycelium was able to pick up the color!
- There’s another method to extract dye from lichen and it’s through boiling them in water.
- For our orange hues we boiled Tree lungwort.
- We were able to achieve a few different shades through ph shifting.
- We are appreciative of the Lichen’s generosity of color.
Slime Mold (Physarum Polycephalum)
Slime Mold is able to solve shortest path problems by detecting nutrient sources and we wanted to utilize this ability to conduct site specific repair for the mycelium patches.
To do this, we needed to find out whether these two organisms get along with each other or not.
So we did experiments putting slime mold and mycelium next to each other in the same petri dishes.
Based on our observations, we found they didn’t interfere with each other that much until there was not enough food resources for slime mold, and it started to feed on mycelium.
From that, we shifted our attention towards collaborating with slime mold to create resist patterns.
The 2024 BioDesign Challenge
Photos by Patrick Leiphart (@patrickleiphartphotography) and Shannon Carroll (@vividstorystudio)
Thank you to the BioDesign Challenge and Twist BioScience for awarding us Outstanding Narrative for our project.
“Where we start to move forward is when we learn to ask questions which are less concerned with ‘Are you like us?’, and more interested in ‘What is it like to be you?”
James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
(top row left to right) Austin Chia, Nadia Nazar, Leyi Guo, Jingwen Zhang, Ryan Hoover (bottom row) Rachel Rusk, Mantis Harper-Blanco, Maia Malakoff, Caelan Grace McCollum, Katherine Luna