Foto Credits: Esther Kaya Stögerer, Jannis Kempkens

Founding an Interspecies Design Studio

How Can We Design Inclusively Across Species? And is it Possible to Ask Other Species for Help in Shaping and Overcoming Our Current Crises?

Esther Kaya Stögerer
Jannis Kempkens

Dr. Bertram Schmidt (Angewandte & Molekulare Mikrobiologie, TU Berlin), Dr. Stefan Junne (Bioverfahrenstechnik Institut für Biotechnologie, TU Berlin), Dr. Jörg Freyhof (Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung), Dr. Erich Schopf (freiberuflicher Bakteriologe) // Dr. Bertram Schmidt (Applied & Molecular Microbiology, TU Berlin), Dr. Stefan Junne (Bioprocess Engineering Institute for Biotechnology, TU Berlin), Dr. Jörg Freyhof (Museum of Natural History, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research), Dr. Erich Schopf (freelance bacteriologist)

Oktober / October - 2022

Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee

Master of Arts

Description

As designers, we work with material that we as humans cannot produce ourselves with our “heterotrophic metabolism”. So the things that we design can be created with the help of other organisms. "Founding an Interspecies Design Studio" addresses the complex relationships, challenges, and opportunities of collaborating with other species to develop a positive future for life on this planet. The modular workspace is designed to explore relationships between fungi, bacteria, beetles, algae, and human designers. The designed modules provide space for the exploration of new relationships between different species and the curation of metabolic flows through which materials and design processes can be developed in the future. The modules are designed in such a way that they can be used for concrete design work as well as for passing on the knowledge gained to designers and interested parties through workshops or other formats.