permeable bodies

Chantel Schultz

Permeable Bodies is an exploration of the body as a host to ancient technologies containing ancestral information about the past as it impacts the present. Our microbiomes play a crucial role in our overall health and contribute to the regulation of mood and behaviour. We carry an aura of microbes around us like fine dust that settles on everything we come into contact with. SCOBY is the culture produced to make Kombucha, a fermented tea that is a popular alternative health consumable to improve our gut flora. The culture grows and forms tightly around the wax, attaches itself and becomes inseparable from the wax structure. The use of this material highlights the growing anxieties and concerns for individual health and ecological responsibility as we envision new sustainable consumer products. It acts as a provocation to consider the micro-ecosystem within the body and the symbiotic relationship we have with these micro guests.