Making a Difference Speaker Series: Designing with Biomaterials – with Fiona Bell
Are you interested in learning about cooking sustainable clothing? Join us for another exciting talk to explore ways to collaborate with living materials, including SCOBY, symbiotic cultures of bacteria, and Dinoflagellates, to create biodegradable interfaces.
We are thrilled to welcome Fiona Bell, an interdisciplinary engineer researching interfaces and interactions with biomaterials. Fiona cares deeply about sustainability and in her doctoral research is currently exploring ways to reduce waste through encouraging intimate relationships between designers, the materials they use and the artifacts they develop.
This talk will focus on more-than-human design, biomaterials, biological human-computer interaction, and bio-wearables. Fiona will also highlight the importance of care, patience, and understanding when designing with living materials.
Please join us on Thursday, Dec 8, at 1:30 p.m AST. Students, Teachers and parents are encouraged to join independently or in groups.
More About Our Guest
Fiona’s research happens at the intersection of material science, biodesign, and human-computer interaction at Prof. Mirela Alistar’s Living Matter Lab. With a B.S. in mechanical engineering (2019), she uses her technical knowledge of materials as a foundation for her current, more biologically-oriented work. As a PhD candidate, she seeks to create technologically innovative and ecologically sustainable interfaces while exemplifying how humans can interact with non-humans in more reciprocal and caring ways. Accordingly, her primary research goal is to challenge current materials and making practices in light of the Anthropocene by designing for more-than-human futures.
Check out Fiona’s website here: https://www.fionaabell.com/ Follow Living Matter Lab via Twitter (https://twitter.com/cu_lml) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/livingmatterlab/)
If you have any questions about the Making a Difference BL Speaker Series, please contact alisha@brilliantlabs.ca
