Seaweed Biomaterial

Laminaria digitata (Oarweed, or fingertare), citric acid, baking soda, glycerine, calcium chloride

All the materials we surround ourselves with have a past, and a future. Take plastic wrap, for example: it begins as algae and plants, metamorphs into oil, and frequently ends its days as a pollutor of marine ecosystems. This journey remains invisible, however, as plastic wrap is designed to be colourless, odourless, frictionless. But disguising the origins of our materials does not mitigate the harm they cause. In response to this, I set out to design a sustainable biomaterial out of unfiltered seaweed that made both its past and future tangible.

Seaweed provides an interesting alternative to petroleum-based materials because it contains alginate, a gelling agent which makes it possible to create thin, biodegradable, waterproof sheets. The seaweed is harvested and processed by hand, allowing careful networks of relationality to form between human and algae.

The material is at once familiar and strange. Smell, colour and texture remind you that you are interacting with another living being, just like yourself.