Visit to a materials library: discovering materials for art creation

Cultura21 Nordic visited the education institution KEA where we had the chance to experience the materials library and the material laboratory. Designer Mette Marko gave a presentation focusing on future materials and on learning from nature’s processes. She introduced the distinction between the biological and technological material lifecycle loops. And the possibilities of growing materials to a desired shape, instead of appropriating the material to a shape with the waste this entails. An example was how you can grow mushrooms in a fibre ‘body’, for instance hemp, into shapes that can serve to make furniture or other products.

With the Artcyclers, we produced our own milk protein plastics. We made this by heating fat milk and mixing it with an acid like vinegar or lemon, which makes the fluid separate. The resulting soft dough can now be
formed to your desired shape by hand. Historically, this material has been used as a substitute to oil based plastics, during periods of scarce supplies, for buttons for clothes, or for small items like children’s toys. Now it may be redeveloped to new purposes again. If it is surface treated with a biodegradable treatment it can stay entirely in the biological life cycle loop.

We also had the opportunity to visit the designer Jonas Edvard’s workshop studio, at the production collective PB43. Jonas introduced us to his work and his approach to being a designer working in a field between art and design. Edvard doesn’t have a specific predefined area or material of focus that interests him, but finds what he considers specific to each project he works on, and which he seeks to identify and develop.

Edvard gave us an introduction to the process he has developed, making his own material from seaweed and paper pulp into a sort of formable ‘clay’ or paste. The Artcyclers experienced forming that material over a mould to the shape of lampshades. The material is dried and fitted with sockets etc., to form a finished lamp.

The seaweed-paper mould material can also be used to shape other interior products such as chairs or tables.

The idea behind this process and material is that the Danish landscape has a plentiful resource of seaweed, offering itself to be inserted into a more bio-based product. Combined with the paper waste, it becomes a bio-upcycled material, based on locally available resources. This principle could inspire many artists working with sustainability as a guiding principle.