Intergrating biology with textiles

Natsai Audrey Chieza - textiles dyed with bacteria

Materails matter with Grant Gibson – Natsia Audrey Chieza on bacteria. Podcast

Fashion has a pollution problem – can biology fix it? TED talk by Natsia Audrey Chieza

Streptomyces coelicolour is the soil bacteria that produces an antibiotic called actinorhodin. This antibiotic produces the shades of blue, purples and pinks depending on the acidity of its environment. This is the bacteria that Audrey Chieza uses to create dye colour directly onto the surface of fabrics. This direct growth on silk for example, produces a coloured stain due to the direct fermentation process. This has made me think about how mould can grow in a range of colours dependent on the surface its grown from. The mould growing on cheese will be different to that growing on an orange for example. This has made me think about how I could use mould as a colour transfer from the naturally moulding fruit or produce onto a material surface. What would the result of this be?

When listening to the Materials matter podcast with Grant Gibson, I was intrigued by how Audrey Chieza talked about how the Streptomyces coelicolour is a wild type organism. This means that it is not genetically modified, therefore no monocultures of non-diverse species are needed to be grown. I thought it was interesting how she talked about how you should nurture the organisms and adapt yourself to help it thrive. In a world where genetic engineering is occurring everywhere, with the most common place it has taken place in is the banana, I thought this idea of adapting yourselve to ensure the organism / crop has the best chance to flourish is a nice way of respecting nature. This has made me think about how I could observe nature and the ways it grows, transforms and the textures and shapes that allow each individual piece of the puzzle to thrive. The colours from these species, organisms, microbes and minerals help to define the look of that thing. Could I directly use these features and colours to produce coloured designs with? Instead of trying to adapt these natural colours to suit myself, could I try to use conditions and methods of colour extraction that allow the natural colour to thrive in their brightest natural state?

How could I modify the environment that I dye in whilst still respecting the natural qualities of the dye medium? the Streptomyces coelicolour produces different shades of colour at different acidities. Could I change the pH which I create natural colour in to alter the shade?

In the TED talk she talked about the water use of producing these colours and adhering them to fabric. I was surprised to find out that to dye 1 T shirt the bacteria survive on just 200ml of water. The properties of the colour produced from the bacteria also create a colour fast pigment which reduces run off. If these natural colours grown from organisms were introduced as a way of dying more commercially, this would not only reduce water consumption of textile production hugely but it would also get rid of the need for toxic synthetic colour, which runs out of factories, mostly in the global south, and into the environment. Afterall this finishing and dyeing stage in textile production is the most harmful to the environment.

The question Audrey Chieza posed in the TED talk was: ‘If a bacteria produces pigment, how can we work with it to dye textiles? This has made me think about how I could use forms of living colour to dye my own textiles. This could be natural dyeing but I could also be more abstract ways for introducing colour to fibres for example by experimenting with applying the unmodified natural colour around me in my outside surroundings directly to paper and fabric to produce coloured mark making.

How the bacteria can be applied to achieves different finish: twisting, folding, clamping, dipping, spraying, submerging, rolling, scrunching, brushing, dipping stencilling. These different processes that allow different surface designs and textures to be created has made me wonder how I could apply stains to fabric to achieve different surface textures. These words and methods initially reminded me of tie-dyeing methods used to achieve mottled surface colour and pattern. Could this pattern be replicated with stains from organic produce?

Plural. 2021. From Bacteria to Colour: The Organic Method of Textile Dyeing. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.pluralmagazine.net/news-1/2019/9/19/bacteria. [Accessed 20 March 2021].

TED. (2021). Fashion has a pollution problem - can biology fix it? | Natsai Audrey Chieza. [Online Video]. 20 December 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZsn1_DARRs&t=10s. [Accessed: 22 March 2021].

Gibson, G., 2020. Natsai Audrey Chieza on bacteria. [podcast] Materials Matter. Available at: <https://grantondesign.com/Natsai-Audrey-Chieza> [Accessed 22 March 2021].

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