BIOPHELIA

Biophelia is a speculative design installation envisaging a future where humans will mourn the lives of biomaterials, in a similar way to mourning human loss. The piece was inspired by John Everett Millais’ ‘Ophelia’.

I draped the bacterial cellulose over the mannequin, as part of my fashion practice. However I was struck by its liveliness and relation to a second skin. I began to view the material as living and thus decaying for human visual consumption. Employing a new materialist theoretical framework, I was questioning the hierarchies between humans and non-humans – in celebrating their passing. Biophelia therefore questions the concept of living materials decaying for our human aesthetic pleasure.