CAC Atelier 10 Microbiology Research: a date with kimchi and black tea leather
Date:
June 15 (Saturday)
June 22 (Saturday)
*the latter one is a casual gathering
Time:
11 – 3pm
Artist:
CHEN Yiyun
Language:
Chinese
Venue:
Chronus Art Center (BL No.18, No.50 Mo Gan Shan Rd, Shanghai)
Fermented food is alive, because microorganisms and bacteria are constantly growing within it. To make fermented food, people add something living from their own bodies to the ingredients and then pass them on to someone else. These tiny yet quantitatively significant “living foods” multiply and, in the process, create new, useful by-products.
This workshop explores the relationship between microbes, individuals, and biomaterials through two fermented foods: kimchi and kombucha.
Workshop A: A Date with Kimchi
Everyone has microbes on their hands, and they mix with the ingredients when they make fermented food like kimchi. Since the type and amount of microorganisms each person carries are different, the food produced bears a unique, personalized flavour. Thus, to a certain extent, these fermented foods reflect the bodily information of their producers. In this workshop, we will regard these unique flavours as a “biological horoscope.”
After a week, almost as if speed dating, the participants will meet again for a blind taste of all the kimchi and choose their favourite producer. By experiencing the food’s “biological horoscope,” the participants will be able to observe the similarities and differences between each other’s microbiota.
Workshop B: Black Tea Leather
Participants will ferment Kombucha to produce a “leather” composed of cellulose fibres. The bacterial membrane of this cellulose fibre is a by-product of Kombucha (a sugary herbal tea produced through a fermentation process, also known as “tea fungus”), and it needs to be cultivated with a cross-feeing, mixed culture of yeast and bacteria (abbreviated as SCOBY), which in turn gets its nutrition from a mixture of vinegar and sugar. After the membrane is formed and dried, depending on its thickness and similarity to plastic film or leather, it can be used as a fabric for making garments, shoes, or handbags.
Artist CHEN Yiyun will also introduce relevant bio-art pieces and display finished examples of black tea fungus in this workshop.
CHEN Yiyun
CHEN Yiyun (b.1988, CN) is an artist currently based in Shanghai. She graduated from MA Design Interactions at Royal College of Art (London, UK) and obtained a BA in Digital Media Design at Tongji University (Shanghai, China). She holds a diploma of Traditional Chinese Medicine at Shanghai University of TCM. Her practices discuss the relationships between a man and his/her body, interrelation between emerging technologies and individual life, using language of speculative and critical design. She currently interests in the realms where art and life science connect, concerned with the human wellbeing under the topic of illness and wellness.
Her works are exhibited in Shanghai, Taiwan, UK, Australia, The Netherlands. In 2018, She attended the PERFECTION exhibition at Science Gallery Melbourne and exhibited the project “Horizontal Living – Long Live in Bed” in Eindhoven (2018). She is the winner of BAD Award 2018 (The Netherlands). Chen has been serving as Lecturer at College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University since 2014, and she has been the visiting researcher of The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at University of West Australia (Australia) and Dept. Nutrition and Movement Sciences at Maastricht University (The Netherlands).
