Clay/biomaterials experiments (Sept 2024- )

The Speculative Materials Futures workshop at STEAMhouse I attended in April 2024 was an opportunity to imagine ways we might change our urban environments in the next 30 years. I chose to work on prototype panels that might increase urban biodiversity by offering environments for plants and animals to flourish. While fascinating to work with, bioplastics don't tend to be very weather resistant...

I was part of the Advanced Practice Workshop (biomaterials/3D printing) at STEAMhouse in September 2024 led by Kaitlin Ferguson and Sarah King which allowed me to create some tests of using clay as a base to which other biomaterials are added. I'm curious about how they might effect porosity after firing as well as thinking about creating structures that might allow flora and fauna to thrive in our urban spaces. (The numbers in the images refer to recipes I'm trying out.)

Bioplastic experiments (April 2024 - )

Feels more like cooking, using materials such as collagen, agar, glycerine, carrageenan, chitin; often combined with food wastes to create polymers that have some of the properties of plastics... but are compostable.

I'm really interested in trying to create structures from these novel materials. Some of these images are from the Speculative Materials Futures workshop at STEAMhouse I attended in April 2024

Mycelium

Work that has developed since my Arts Council England dycp (2021), that involves growing fungal mycelium through different textiles, creating hybrid materials. This also involves growing sheets of mycelium that can be preserved as a pseudo-leather material.