BioDwelling Events
- Tendrils with no way of knowing at The OME, Newcastle University, 20-23 March 2023
Tendrils with no way of knowing is an exhibition of the points at which tendrils from within the HBBE meet outside contact. The works on show are the result of growing relationships prompted by questions seeded at the outset of the BioDwelling project. Questions such as, What role does responsibility play in making and living with biotechnological materials? How can we build responsible and sustainable relations to more-than-humans? How can we relate to a building that lives? Does it become part of the family? These questions are posed both to and with a growing community of BioDwellers – people who have come together from outside of the academic institution to consider and contribute to the work of the HBBE through creative practice.
The exhibition shares work inspired and supported by the research of the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment, which the BioDwelling community have contributed to through events that took place from April 2022 to March 2023.
Listen with Mother? at Habit,Ability!, NewBridge Studios, 9 July to 23 Sept 2022 - participatory audio installation with live symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast, for listening to and sharing stories with our kombucha kin
BioDwelling at Habit,Ability!, NewBridge Studios, 9 July to 23 Sept 2022 - exhibition and participatory art events that explore how we relate to biotechnological bodies from microbes to mycelium, including:
- Become a BioDweller (9 July 2022) - sign-up event for the BioDwelling Network
OME Brew - Swallow Your Words (9 July 2022) - Turn bad vibes into good in a cathartic beer making activity. Join Louise, John and Greg from Newcastle and Northumbria University’s Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment in a cleansing ritual where we will shred future fears and hi-tech over-promises, which will be fed to bacteria that – over the course of the exhibition – will transform paper into beer. You can still take part here.
CROSS Pollination with the Great North Museum, 1 Aug to 7 Aug 2022 - participatory public workshops that start to build a relationship between the museum garden and HBBE's experimental house The OME, exploring multispecies approaches to circular living in the home and garden. Including:
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Reimagining Leek Waste with Iuliyaniya Girgoryeva,
1 Aug and 2 Aug 2022, 11-1pm
Leek is a common vegetable, consumed by households on a regular basis in the UK. It accounts for 10% of all outdoor vegetables grown in the UK. The traditional preparation method for leeks causes 6 million tonnes of leek to end up in land fill each year, contributing to the growing problem of food waste. We will discover alternative ways of treating waste from leek. The possibilities of re-growing leeks within your own home and a hands-on session: weaving with leek layers. You will be introduced to examples from research, and experiment with new material. We welcome everybody interested in craft, circularity or nature.
Non-Human Experience - GNM Garden and OME with Louise Mackenzie and Sneha Solanki, 3rd August 2022, 12-1pm Louise Mackenzie is an artist and researcher with the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment. Artist and educator Sneha Solanki works across disciplines, making work - and living with - microbial materials. Come and experience the hidden world of the non-human through a sensory tour of the GNM garden and the OME. Then stay at the OME to meet our SCOBY* mother and explore how bacteria and yeast naturally form materials that we can use in our homes.
*Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast
Natural Dye Workshop with Katie Pollard, 5 Aug 2022, 11am - 1pm Katie is a natural dye artist and dye plant grower based in Newcastle. She has a process and experimentation led practice and makes her own inks and dyes from plants. In this workshop, we will use food waste and plants to dye a recycled cotton napkin using a bundle dyeing method, which using steam, directly transfers plant colour onto fabric. While waiting for the bundles to steam, we will also try out using some natural inks on paper.
Building a Multispecies Habitat out of Mushrooms with Dilan Ozkan, Laurin Kilbert , Asya Ilgun, Svenja Keune, 6 Aug 2022, 11am - 1pm Dilan Ozkan is an architect and researcher who focuses on working with living systems. Within her research, she investigates fungi and adapts its divergent qualities to the field of architecture. Join Dilan and colleagues who are exploring interspecies habitats, to learn how to build an insect house from mycelium, the root network of mushrooms, which we will place in our GNM garden over the summer.
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Non-Human Sense - Sensory Walk (21 Aug 2022) - Join Louise Mackenzie, Greg Young from the HBBE and Tiago Moreira from Durham University for a sensory-walk through Ouseburn where we will use senses other than sight to ask how perceiving the microbial content of a space changes the way we experience it. Using deep listening, field recording and imaginative sensing strategies drawn from the work of Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier, we will attempt to find new ways to experience the microbial fields that surround us but that we barely comprehend.
OME Brew Part 2 - Ritual Transformations BYOB (26 Aug 2022, 4-6pm) - Ritual, bacteria and beer combine in this workshop, where the Scottish tradition of ceremonial cleansing to rid one of forspeaking or 'overselling' is adapted to make beer out of biotech hype and over-promises. Join Louise Mackenzie with scientists John Allan from the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University and Greg Young from Newcastle and Northumbria University’s Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment, home of the OME experimental home/lab, to collectively question the rites and rights of brewing concoctions with biotechnological bodies. We will share the process of making beer from bacteria that live on wastepaper, work together on making a collective ritual from our biotech hopes and fears and make designs for our biotech hype OME Brew.
Shit Happens! - Toilet Paper Zine Workshop (18 October 2022, 6-9pm) - What are our cultural phobias and phobias around bodily materials? Why is shit the last taboo? How can we raise awareness of permaculture and composting processes? What new technologies are changing home waste recycling? Join in a Riso-workshop to create toilet tissue that talks shit.
