E(lla) Augusta

Can a symbiotic design approach, engaging eco-philosophical perspectives, expand notions of material boundaries and facilitate new understandings of ecological conversations through practice?

In a search for new understandings of the relationship between the maker and the made, this practice-based research explores the conceptual threshold of material boundaries through a lens of eco-philosophical thought. Reflective mappings of autoethnographic inquiry and a symbiotic design approach investigate the interplay of mind and matter and the agency of both in the formation of experimental biofabricated materials made from starch-based bioplastics and symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). Theories of eco-philosophical thought, eco-logic, and material ecocriticism are used further to explore a mutualism between the maker and the made; a symbiosis focused on moving towards the synergy of human and non-human creation. Final reflections suggest the potentiality of symbiotic design praxis as a way forward for ethical creation orientated toward an eco-logical awareness for design and material futures.