‘A bio lab is a place of working with living organisms, brought out of their habitat so we can learn to think outside of the Petri dish. Let’s take care of these teachers!’
At the Avans Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT), Michaela Davidová is lab coordinator at creative research lab Material Incubator
and a researcher at the Regenerative Art & Design group.
Michaela Davidova (1988, she/her) is a Czech artist, teacher and researcher based in Tilburg, the Netherlands. She holds a BA(Hons) Artist, Designer: Maker degree from the Cardiff School of Art and Design, Wales; and an MA in Ecology Futures from the Master Institute of Visual Cultures, Noord Brabant.
Her research is hugely driven by the process. Body waste, DIY column chromatography, urine-based photographic developers and plant/fungi matter digesting images, belly sounds, ingredients, pinhole cameras and morphing growing cultures are all part of her practice. Although her artistic research revolves around analogue photography, it is not limited to images. Instead, she aims to bring audiences closer to ecological thinking and making which she explains as ‘getting out of the frame and enlarging the artist/researcher’s role into an alchemist and a carer’.
Michaela Davidova is an active workshop teacher in alternative photographic processes and bio art practice. She is teaching Material Ecologies at St. Joost Academy, a minor led by Annemarie Piscaer, and she is a teacher for Master’s module Growing culture: Biodesign 1, developed by Emma van der Leest. Together with researcher and artist Risk Hazekamp, Michaela led course Photography Otherwise: A Cookbook of Ecological Photographic Processes at Minerva Art Academy in Groningen.
She is a co-founder of young curatorial non-space Text my Sister. Michaela collaborated with and continues supporting the community The Sustainable Darkroom (UK) and is a member of a film lab Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam (NL). Her graduation research named Constructed Wetlands & Deconstructed Borders was awarded EKP Excellence in Research Award 2022. It focuses on the ecological impact of photographic materials and darkroom waters, their remediation and digestion by living organisms and the thin borders between the humanature.
Picture by Hedwich Rooks
Seasonal Lab Walks
A series of seasonal walks with local experts and foragers, initiated the Regenerative Art & Design group in collaboration with the Material Incubator Lab, inviting students and researchers to explore ethical foraging, fermentation, and regenerative fieldwork in collaboration with local ecologies.
Research Group: Regenerative Art and Design
The Regenerative Art and Design (RAD) research group seeks to contribute to a new generation of regenerative designers and artists who address the pressing need for transitions that support planetary health. By taking whole systems responsibility through collaborative practices, the group aims to create transformative pathways for reimagining design futures grounded in care and ecological integrity.
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