M Y C O M E T A M O R P H I C

M Y C O   M E T A M O R P H I C

Nicole Asselin
Exhibit design in collaboration with Cecilia Mouat
June 6 - July 28

Biodesign is an emerging movement that addresses designs’ connection with the natural world. Essential within the biodesign lexicon are mycelium composite materials. Mycelium is the vegetative, filamentous part of a mushroom, usually found underground. When grown within a nutrient rich substrate, the mycelium and the substrate bind together forming a stable, easily regenerated material. This growing process can be tailored to express a wide range of properties and affordances applicable for design applications. Mycelium composites are currently in use commercially as viable replacements for plastics and packing material as well as insulation, foam and leather.

This emerging design medium utilizes a transdisciplinary lens that expands the essential and timely conversation of designs’ relationship with nature and sustainability. It moves beyond the antiquated approach of simple resource conservation, developing a paradigmatic shift- inviting new ways of making that promote life-giving cycles and challenge dominate modes of production and consumption. These composite materials work with biological events as essential design components – not designing like nature, designing with natural processes. In conversation with the current concerns surrounding environmental issues, contemporary discourse in design is asking how to generate new materials and new cycles of use. Mycelium-based materials actively bring nature, science and design together to reimagining ways of producing and valuing materials.