SCOBY WORKS: MICROBIAL MATERIALITIES

2018

As a key collaborator on Wastelands, WhiteFeather developed the biomaterial component and bioplastic bags central to the project’s infrastructure and aesthetic. In collaboration (mentorship) with Queen’s University art conservation student Courtney Books, she co-invented a novel bioplastic that formed the basis for the carrier systems used within the work. This innovation and her work to design and construct the bioplastic bags was integral to the function and articulation of the project.

2017-18

Bucci is a speculative Gucci knock-off that incorporates the agency of microbes and machines in an organic-mechanic synthesis to produce a posthuman garment. Aligned with the slow fashion movement, Bucci engages two forms of cellulose: bacterial cellulose produced by a kombucha SCOBY and industrial cellulose filament extruded through a hand-built, unstable MakerBot printer. 

2108

Plump and Pliant is a collaborative research project to investigate the treatment and preservation of SCOBY-derived bacterial cellulose within contemporary art. Developed at the intersection of bioart and conservation science, the project examines how living or once-living materials can be stabilized without erasing the conditions that define them. 

2018

Mother is a collaborative biofabrication work that explores SCOBY as both living material and generative metaphor. Drawing on the term “mother” used in kombucha culture to describe the cellulose-forming organism that produces successive “daughter” layers, the work engages processes of growth, transmission, and lineage.