Co-cultivating living materials: mycelium and bacterial colour
In collaboration with ASCUS Art and Science* Ruta is exploring experimental biodesign through hands-on laboratory research.
Work focuses on cultivating mycelium and bacterial coloration, investigating how these microorganisms can be grown together within shared environments.
The work embraces instability, contamination, and transformation as productive forces, positioning material making as a collaborative practice between human and non-human actors.
By encouraging simultaneous growth, interaction, and unpredictability, this research examines colour, texture and form as living processes shaped by more-than-human agency.
Through this work, Ruta is continuing to learn from mycelium by engaging with it across different scales. Alongside material experimentation, she ran sessions observing mycelium under a microscope, using close visuals study to better understand its structures, behaviours, and growth patterns.
Fungal hyphae network under a microscope
Fungal mould spreading on spores
Grain spawn. Fungi colonised barley grain as food source
Microscopic observation as material learning
Pigmented bacteria - Serratia marcescens
Fungal mould infected sample under the microscope
Mycelium coloured with red pigmented bacteria by simultaneous growth
*ASCUS Art & Science is a non-profit organisation bringing together art, science and beyond. · WE host Scotland's first publicly accessible art-science lab.
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