Biodesign and the Allure of “Grow-made” Textiles: An Interview with Carole Collet

Abstract

Biodesign is at the forefront of innovations in advanced textiles and material futures. Incorporating principles of biomimicry, bioengineering and synthetic biology, a common leitmotif within biodesign initiatives is an ethos of working with or learning from organic processes. Embraced as an alternative to the traditional carbon intensive industrial practices and overconsumption purchasing habits that mark the contemporary fashion and textile industries, biodesigners, in fashion as in other fields, value regenerative production models, biodegradable materials, and circular economic models. Ecological concern is central to the biodesign discourse, where the key potential of biodesign is understood as its ability to overturn models of fast and cheap production and energy intensive procedures that have contributed to the damaging carbon footprint of the fashion industry. Biodesign is not simply a practical endeavour of producing alternative materials, it equally disrupts and rethinks contemporary ideologies of producing and purchasing that have proved ecologically detrimental. At this philosophical level, a number of concerns and theoretical framings intersect the theory of biodesign and issues that are sentient to cultural geographers. In this paper, we explore some of those shared interests through the presentation of a conversation held at Central Saint Martins, UAL in London in December 2018 between Carole Collet (a world-leader in biodesign textile research) and Nina Williams (a cultural geographer researching the ethics of biodesign).

;生物设计是高级纺织品和材料的前沿创新领域。结合仿生学、生物工程学和合成生物学，生物设计常见的主题，是处理有机过程或者从中进行学习的道德观。生物设计能取代目前时装业和纺织业的传统碳工业方法和过度消费与购买习惯。生物设计人员重视再生的生产模式、生物可降解材料和循环经济模型。生态上的考虑是生物设计的核心。生物设计的主要潜力是，它能够颠覆快速廉价生产和能源型工序的模式，而这种模式已经产生了时装工业的破坏性碳足迹。生物设计不仅是生产替代材料的实践性努力，它也颠覆和反思了已经被证实对生态有害的生产和购买观念。在哲学层面，许多顾虑和理论框架，都与生物设计理论和文化地理学问题产生交集。通过展示2018年12月于伦敦艺术大学中央圣马丁学院举办的Carole Collet（生物设计纺织品研究的世界级领军人物）和Nina Williams（生物设计伦理的文化地理学者）的对话，本文探讨了上述共同感兴趣的问题。

El biodiseño se halla en la punta de las innovaciones en textiles avanzados y futuros materiales. Incorporando principios de biomimetismo, bioingeniería y biología sintética, un leitmotiv corriente dentro de las iniciativas del biodiseño es un ethos de trabajar con procesos orgánicos o aprender de ellos. Acogidos como una alternativa a las prácticas industriales tradicionales intensivas en carbono y los hábitos de compras sobreconsumistas que marcan la moda contemporánea y las industrias textiles, los biodiseñadores, en la moda como en otros campos, valoran los modelos regenerativos de producción, los materiales biodegradables y los modelos económicos circulares. La preocupación ecológica es central en el discurso del biodiseño, donde el potencial clave del biodiseño se entiende como su habilidad para doblegar modelos de producción rápida y barata, y procedimientos intensivos en energía que han contribuido a la dañina huella del carbono de la industria de la moda. El biodiseño no es simplemente un cometido práctico de producir materiales alternativos, sino que igualmente perturba y reenfoca las ideologías contemporáneas de producir y comprar que han resultado ecológicamente nocivas. En este novel filosófico se intercepta un numero de preocupaciones y enmarcaciones teóricas con la teoría del biodiseño y con asuntos que son sensibles para los geógrafos culturales. En este trabajo exploramos algunos de esos intereses compartidos a través de la presentación de una conversación sostenida en Central Saint Martins, UAL, en Londres, en diciembre de 2018, entre Carole Collet (una líder mundial en investigación de textiles para biodiseño) y Nina Williams (una geógrafa cultural que investiga la ética del biodiseño).

Key Words:

• biodesign
• biomimicry
• interview
• speculative ethics
• textiles

 :

• ;生物设计，仿生学，采访，思辨伦理学，纺织品

 :

• biodiseño
• biomimetismo
• entrevista
• ética especulativa
• textiles

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Tim Creswell for his engagement with the article as well as an anonymous referee for their feedback which considerably helped to improve our framing of the paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nina Williams

NINA WILLIAMS is Lecturer in Cultural Geography in the School of Science at the University of New South Wales Canberra, ACT 2612, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Nina’s research explores conceptual innovations in the fields of nonrepresentational theory, process thinking and post-humanism, particularly as they are derived through the philosophies of Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson. A central pursuit in Nina’s research is to amplify aesthetics and creativity as salient modes of sensing and engaging geographic work in diverse ecologies of practice. This approach has led Nina to conduct research projects and develop experimental methodological techniques in the contexts of art and curation, fashion and textiles, biodesign and speculative design, walking and mapmaking, and sonic geographies.

Carole Collet

CAROLE COLLET is Professor in Design for Sustainable Futures at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, London N1C 4AA, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Carole Collet is Director of Maison/0, the CSM-LVMH Sustainable Innovation Programme set up in 2017 in partnership with the luxury group LVMH. She is also co-director of the Design & Living Systems Lab, a research lab which explores the inherent properties of biological living systems to develop new knowledge in the field of ecology via creative practices in art, design and architecture. As an educator, she has pioneered the integration of sustainability in the curriculum by founding new courses such as MA Textile Futures in 2001 (now Material Futures) and the first MA in Biodesign in 2019. In her research, Collet questions how and what we can learn from living systems to develop inherently sustainable and regenerative new propositions for design. She curated the first international biodesign exhibition “Alive, New Design Frontiers” in 2013 to propose a sustainable framework for designing with living systems. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions such as the V&A and the Pompidou Centre. She regularly contributes to conferences on the subjects of biodesign, biomimicry, permaculture, sustainable and regenerative futures.