!! This ticket is for attending the online livestream (this ticket does not give you physical access to the event in BlueCity only to the online live stream)!!

What if we could grow clothes from microbes or built furniture from living organisms? Replace plastic completely by algae or bacteria? And offer sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives to building materials like cement? At Biodesign Night 2021 we'll explore the integration of living organisms in the design process. 

Biodesign Night 2021 - Design for biodiversity

This year's edition of Biodesign Night is dedicated to a question that keeps many of us occupied: how to fit GMO (genetically modified organisms) into a biocircular society. Our aim is to have a constructive, open conversation with designers, artists, engineers and scientist about how to 'use' organisms to design for biodiversity, thereby taking indigenous wisdom ánd scientific knowledge into account.

On the one hand, we find knowledge in indigenous wisdom and traditional crafts from all over the world. How can we re-evaluate nature’s organisms and the important role indiginous cultures have in translating nature's patterns to many of the humans who unlearnt listening and learning from nature? How can we bring nature back into the core of our decision making and production processes?

On the other hand, a more human-centered approach has erupted in the past years. It is taking form in Delft and biodesign practices in the USA: genetic modification and adjusting or selecting microbes to produce food, biomaterials, medicine and other regenerative solutions for us in an industrial process.

How to navigate the question of designing for biodiversity, considering these two approaches, will be the core of  Biodesign Night 2021. 

Let’s start growing long-term solutions.

Program

Jeroen Junte - editor in chief Design Digger

As our moderator, Jeroen will guide us through the evening. He's a freelance journalist, writer, curator, moderator and researcher with a strong focus on design, technology, innovation and architecture. He regularly writes for de Volkskrant, Elle Decoration, Architectuur NL and international titles such as Frame and DAMN. His most recent book is the first design and architecture travel guide to the Netherlands. Furthermore, Jeroen has curated several exhibitions and organizes a series of live magazines focusing on the creative industry.

Maurizio Montalti - Designer and Founder Officina Corpuscoli

Our keynote speaker is Maurizio, he will also take part in the closing panel. In 2010, he founded Officina Corpuscoli: a multidisciplinary studio, providing creative consultancy and (co-)developing both commissioned and self-initiated research projects, often inspired by and in collaboration with living systems and organisms, with a deep focus on fungi. Besides the many activities and projects at OC, Maurizio is also co-founder, chairman and director of Mogu (IT), an innovation-driven, environmentally-conscious, design company, dedicated to developing, designing, producing and commercialising different typologies of innovative biomaterials and products deriving from processes rooted in fungal fermentation, at industrial scale.

Shahar Livne - Conceptual Material Designer

Shahar is one of our three ‘One’s to Watch’. Her body of work focuses on conceptual material research in a multi-leveled methodology, bringing to life unique stories through objects and installations centered around materials as the carriers of narratives. Currently, Shahar is presenting her work internationally, creating new research projects as an autonomous designer, curator, educator and as collaborator with different companies and institutes, collaborating with among others Balenciaga and the TextielLab in Tilburg.

Anna Sitnikova - project leader of the Living Aero Bacterial Systems (LABS)

Anna is one of our three ‘One’s to Watch’. She's a designer and curator based in Amsterdam. For Studio Samira Boon she is project leader of the Living Aero Bacterial Systems (LABS): Future Interiors research. This research aims to make our indoor climate healthier and more sustainable using living textiles developed with microorganisms.  One of the newly developed materials that has originated from this research is called KOMBUTEX. The material offers smart opportunities to tackle the challenges of indoor air quality towards a more healthy environment. As one of our designer speakers, Anna will tell us all about the material and its applications. 

Emma van der Leest - Designer and Founder BlueCity Lab

Emma is one of our ‘One’s to Watch’. ‘Form Follows Organism: The Biological Computer’ is the title of her research and book on biodesign and the shifting role of a designer working collaboratively with scientists. She is the founder of BlueCity Lab. Emma holds a research position in ‘New Material Practices’ at Willem de Kooning Academy and is lector ‘Growing Cultures’ at Ecology Futures Master program at Avans University. This year she is a guest curator for the Dutch Innovation Pavilion for the Floriade and one of the ‘brains’ at the new science program of the VPRO, Anna’s Brains.

Ira van Eelen - Co-founder and CEO of KindEarth.Tech

Ira will take part in the closing panel. Ira van Eelen is a mission driven organizer and designer. In 2019 she founded KindEarth.Tech (KET), a privately funded non-profit organisation that accelerates the new protein industry through in-person and digital events. Her legacy as the daughter of Willem van Eelen, and forty years of clean, cultured, just, InVitro Meat history has made her a true advocate of cultured meat, and a champion at explaining the urgency of this innovation.

Petra Hogervorst - Senior Policy Advisor Circular Economy and Biotechnology at RIVM

Petra will take part in the closing panel. She is a biologist with a broad scientific background in risk analysis of genetically modified organisms, agroecology and entomology, and extensive policy experience in the field of biotechnology. As senior policy advisor in the department of safe innovations and circular economy at the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Petra translates scientific research into policy advice on topics such as Safe and Sustainable by Design and the transition to a circular economy.

About Biodesign Night

Biodesign Night is the annual event on the intersection of design, biology and technology. We invite designers, artists, engineers and scientist to share their experience about biodesign, the integration of living organisms in the design process. Here you can meet the frontrunners in the field, interact with likeminded people, and start new collaborations.

Do you want to attend the event in Rotterdam? Get your ticket for the offline event here.