‘Exploring and integrating novel perspectives to our everyday through the eyes of fungi.’
Wasabii Ng is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft, and is a researcher within the Biobased Art and Design research group.
Wasabii is an interdisciplinary designer-researcher and is currently a PhD candidate at TU Delft. Her work navigates between the designing of experiences, materials, and biology, from a critical ecological perspective. She trained in Textiles, graduating in 2014 with first-class honours from Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London. In 2016 she received her Masters in Information Experience Design from The Royal College of Art. Currently, her PhD focuses on using everyday fungal encounters to tune living aesthetics in mycelium materials. This process offers numerous possibilities for cleaner production and for the design of novel responsive artefacts. Her research brings together research techniques from biology and design in a unique iterative manner.
(2023 – 2019) Out Of Tune: Living With Cacophony
This research project investigates the visual, auditive, and tactile qualities of mycelium.
Research Group: Biobased Art and Design
The research group Biobased Art and Design capitalises on the role of artistic practice in unlocking the unique potentials of living organisms for everyday materials and communicating these to a broader public. In doing so, the group aims to instigate and accelerate our widespread understanding, further development and usage of such materials. The group’s research approach encourages tangible interactions with the living organisms, such as algae, fungi, plants and bacteria, to explore and understand their unique qualities and constraints through diverse technical and creative methods taking artists, designers and scientists as equal and active partners in the material creation.
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‘How can art and design cultivate critical expressions rooted in ethics of care and relationality to influence ecological, social, and economic structures?’
Delfina Fantini van Ditmar 
‘It is through the “not-knowing” that a stimulating and caring environment can be created to confidently share vulnerability.’
Risk Hazekamp
‘The dynamic relationship between humans and living artefacts will continue to evolve reciprocally with mutual care.’
Elvin Karana
‘In my work the concept of time is a recurring theme.’
Xandra van der Eijk
‘Bacteria, Fungi, Humans, all part of the same experiment.’
Ward Groutars
‘The pleasure of working in the [MI] lab is that microbiological research is carried out from two different approaches.’
John van der Werf
‘Digital media help me to envision future interactions with living materials’
Jose Martinez Castro
‘I believe a collaborative and efficient lab can address both educational and research demands.’
Serena Buscone
‘I am eager to explore how unique qualities of ‘living materials’ can transform the way we think, feel and act.’
Hazal Ertürkan
‘Nature is a perfect example of an iterative design process. It is inspiring and full of exciting solutions.’
Clarice Risseeuw