Five artists who bring Art and Design to life with Yeast

Gastronomy and food science have exploded with microorganisms in recent years. We have seen the rise of sourdough bread and at-home fermentation tutorials touting health benefits. Yeast has been invoked in discussions on sustainability, and the object of growing interest in the traditional food preserving methods of previous generations. It’s hardly surprising that (bio)artists and designers are also turning to yeast, not just as inspiration, but as a medium for their projects.   

SCOBY packaging by Roza Janusz, 2018, © The artist

What is so special about yeast, and what is it anyway?

It’s a single-cell organism classified as a fungus. Yeast has a ‘sweet tooth’, much like humans do, fermenting sugars and converting them into carbon dioxide which is why it is an essential ingredient in a baker’s kitchen. Yeast not only precedes humanity, but it will likely survive us too. Its proven longevity and hardiness prompt us to reconsider humanity’s power relation to these tiny organisms which surround us and live inside us. Changing attitudes towards food production and organic agriculture show us a glimpse of a perhaps not-so-distant future in which we will be able to live in perfect harmony with microorganisms.

For the following bioartists and designers, yeast is not simply a tacit medium. It’s an active collaborator and participant in their work.

SCOBY packaging by Roza Janusz, 2018, © The artist

Polish artist, Roza Janusz has developed a yeast-based packaging that could become an alternative to plastic. Janusz is using yeast and bacteria cultures to ferment agricultural waste to make SCOBY packaging. After a period of two weeks, she is able to shape the bio-membrane in moulds creating packaging for all types of foods and dry perishable items. She hopes that the bio-composite material can be easily integrated into the farming process at an industrial level that could eliminate the use of plastic packaging, but the yeast cultures in the packaging would also act as an organic fertiliser for the soil. Currently, she is developing new methods of growing the cellulose membrane. The packaging could therefore become an active agent in the food and farming cycle as well as making single-use plastic redundant.

Fold and Stretch by Laura Wilson, 2016, © The artist

Northern Irish artist, Laura Wilson has a longstanding connection to yeast, mainly in the form of bread dough. In 2016, she developed a performance artwork titled Fold and Stretch alongside baker Martha Brown and choreographer Lucy Suggate. Three performers moved, stretched, and worked with yeasted bread dough equalling their individual body weight for twenty-four minutes. The symbiotic movements are at first guided by the performers who knead the dough, however, as the yeast becomes more active through continued exposure to the body heat of the performers and the unique microbiome of the performance space, this power relation becomes more egalitarian. The dough comes to life and even starts dictating the performers’ actions.

Bubble Organ, part of the Living Instruments projects by Hackuarium and Serge Veuille, 2016-ongoing, © Hackuarium

Living Instruments is an active and ongoing musical project born out of a collaboration between the Swiss ‘Hackuarium’ research community, who promote innovative biological research in a neutral and open research space and fellow-Swiss musician Serge Vuille.  The live performance involves an instrument called the Bubble Organ that uses the carbon dioxide-output of fermenting yeast cultures in beakers. The activity of the yeast is detected by a computer which then turns the impulses into sound, making audible a symphony composed entirely by yeast! Living Instruments is an exploration of how these biological processes can unite the arts and sciences in the future of music. It also presses the listener to reconsider their interactions with life in all its forms, as it highlights the sound of a complex creative organism that we cannot even observe with the naked eye.

Gut Feelings by Alanna Lynch, performed at Art Laboratory Berlin, 2017, © Art Laboratory Berlin

Alanna Lynch is a Berlin-based artist using symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeasts growing on kombucha tea. Her performance project Gut Feelings consists of Lynch dipping her hand in a vat of brown liquid containing the yeast and bacterial colonies. Through the process of fermentation, these microorganisms produce a cellulose material that’s slimy when wet and can adapt to any shape, but it can also be dried and used as a type of textile, like Janusz’s SCOBY packaging. Beyond the external and material relationship between the microbial colony and Lynch, she is also reflecting on the internal presence of yeast and bacteria in our bodies. She also drinks the kombucha tea as part of her performance. Given the crucial interconnectedness of microbiomes, the gut, and the brain making up the complex system that is the body, bacteria can be seen as radical in the potential to undo the subject/object tension and question the role of the non-human within the human body.

Stella McCartney x MoMa Gold Dress by Stella McCartney and Bolt Threads, 2017, © Bolt Threads

In a more commercially driven project, yeast is used as a biodegradable alternative to spider-produced silk fibres. The California-based bioengineering company, Bolt Threads was founded in 2009 by Dan Widmaier, David Breslauer and Ethan Mirsky. They studied silk proteins spun by spiders and then replicate these proteins which can be injected into yeast cells. A fermentation process allows for the production of a textile which has the same properties as spider-spun silk with the added benefit of less-detrimental environmental impact such as water pollution and is also proven to be more durable. In 2017, Bolt Threads collaborated with fashion designer Stella McCartney to produce garments made entirely of yeast-produced silk.

What’s next?

Could yeast be the answer to questions of sustainable design in the future? We will certainly see more mention of this humble single-cell organism as we continue to map and remodel humanity’s role within the ecosystem. These artists elevate yeast to a new holistic view which encompasses the smallest and simplest life forms as well as the most complex ones.