Material explorations with wool and starch lead to the creation of self-supporting lamps. I love the warm look of light shining through starched wool. I continued to experiment, and ended up growing moss on a series of lamps that resembled tree stumps. I found that moss grows well on wool due to the texture of the material. These mossy lamps became a bit of a speculative project in which I looked at what a world would look like if when we cared for our objects, our objects looked after us in return (watering the lamp leads to fresh oxygen).
(L) I also added some dirt and moss to the tapioca starch mixture, with hopes of the dirt possibly nourishing the moss. The lamps looked interesting lit, but without light the lamp looked too much like a little pile of dirt.
(R) My first attempt at growing moss on wool. Successful! The moss survived for months (I let it dry out after the end of the semester to test out how the whole system biodegrades). Results TBD.
