Their workshop, ‘Miraculous Futures for Living Materials: Speculative Storytelling with Living Materials’ was part of A CLIMATE OF CHANGE. It was very well received and highly praised.
The workshop aims to broaden biodesigners’ perspectives and to stimulate design ideation with living materials (such as bacteria- and algae-based materials). It uses speculative storytelling and recent research on designing with living materials, and builds on the Miraculous Futures card deck, a tool developed by Klasien van de Zandschulp and Ashley Baccus-Clark for creating speculative stories. A ‘living materials’ edition of this card deck was designed, drawing on the ‘Living Material Vocabulary’ developed by Ertürkan, Karana, and Mugge in 2021. The new card deck stimulates a conversation about possible futures for living with living materials: it helps participants understand what living materials are by introducing their qualities, and it also invites the imagination to speculate on radical futures in which living materials are integrated to the world. During the workshop, the card deck is used to spark ideas and to generate concepts. World-building exercises and templates help further expand these ideas. The workshop produces a speculative story (a scene or situation) that can take place in the world that is created.
Hazal Ertürkan + Sarah Lugthart, St. Joost School of Art & Design, TU Delft, Netherlands
Further information on the session.