BIOTEXTILES & LABORATORY CRAFT

Biomateria: Biotextile Craft is an award-winning project that engages vital materiality across textile practice, wet lab techniques, and micro-ecological systems through an innovation called "wet weaving." Textile-based forms were developed as scaffolding seeded with mammalian cells and shaped through processes of growth, care, and material negotiation. Scientific processes, institutional frameworks, and artistic manipulations were presented in tandem, highlighting tensions between applied research, bureaucratic constraint, and creative interpretation.

The Bactinctorium was a long-term collaborative research project exploring the potential of pigment-producing bacteria as textile dyes, developing new methodologies grounded in craft and microbiological practice. Situated within the grow-it-yourself and slow textile movements, the project sought to subvert, democratize, and disrupt industrial dye systems. Through a feminist DIYbio approach, the group developed a novel protocol for menstrual blood agar as a substrate for cultivating iron-loving bacteria used in the dyeing process.

Salivam emerged from a 10-month collaborative research investigation with Dr. Denis Groleau, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Microorganisms and Industrial Processes at Université de Sherbrooke. The project combined lab experiments with DIYbio approaches to bacterial culture, enzyme extraction, and collagen degradation to explore intimacy and material transformation through a critical and humorous engagement with the hype surrounding anti-aging technologies.

Across multiple connected projects, WhiteFeather developed a sustained investigation into SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) as a living biomaterial. Bacterial cellulose is transformed into textile, structural, and sculptural forms, positioning microbial activity as both medium and co-creative agent. These works engage with art conservation, fashion, speculative futures, and the SCOBY “mother” as a model of generative reproduction.

Crafting Biotextiles was developed during a residency at SymbioticA International Centre for Excellence in Biological Arts, to investigate the application of textile patterning and structural integrity to the construction of protein matrices for tissue engineering. 3D-printed weaving tools were integrated into the cultures as functional and conceptual components of the laboratory apparatus. The research extended into an investigation of overlaps between histological laboratory techniques and textile methods, including staining, further collapsing distinctions between science and craft. This work led directly the larger project, Biomateria: Biotextile Craft.