Living and Dyeing.
A recipe for multispecies relations by Natsai Audrey Chieza.
LIVING AND DYEING
Some sugar, a dash of salt, a pinch of yeast,
plenty of purified water.
Sterilise.
Add a drop of young Streptomyces coelicolor cells.
For now, they seem invisible.
They are yet to talk to me,
but they breathe.
Bathe a piece of woven silk in the broth. Incubate for 7 days.
What colour, what dance?
What secrets?
That! The smell of rain.
Rinse.
And repeat.
Natsai Audrey Chieza
Living and Dyeing was commissioned by Serpentine Galleries and first published in 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth by Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and curator Kostas Stasinopoulos (Penguin Press, 2021).
About 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth by Serpentine Galleries.
The compendium of recipes, sketches, photographs, essays, spells and instructions invite us to imaginatively engage with ecological and equitable futures through the lens of artists, scientists, architects and filmmakers. The book was initiated as part of Serpentine Galleries’ multi-year project ‘Back to Earth’, which weaves interdisciplinary knowledge through research, interventions and activities. The artefact responds to provocations for seeding agency in our daily lives in the context of the climate emergency – offering visions for our planet that incentivise us to cook, dream and act, in hope for generations.
This poem is brought to life through the Exploring Jacket, which prototypes new models for manufacture originating with soil-bound microorganisms.
Cut from silk and batch-dyed with wild-type Streptomyces coelicolor, the limited edition piece embodies multispecies relations between the microorganism and the designer.
Exploring Jacket available now on normalphenomena.life
