This workshop is an introduction into the potential of future materials that can be crafted or cultivated and widely applied in design, architecture, fashion and even healthcare. We will be closely inspecting new materials and exploring the possibilities of the use of biotechnologies, biofabrication and living systems in our material futures. We will be creating our own biomaterials from bacterial cellulose and other abundant sources in nature and brainstorm on how to manipulate them to create a better, sustainable future!

Marisa Satsia is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and researcher specialising in medical and biological arts. She works in the intersections of visual arts, design and DIY-Biology through biotinkering with biotechnology, biodesign and new materials. 

She has a background in Fine art and Medical art studies and during her undergraduate degree she experimented with drawing, photography, sculpture, ceramics, microscopy, installation work, embroidery and printmaking. In the final year of her undergraduate course, Marisa focused on the intersections of art and science and on interdisciplinary visual research by collaborating with the Medical Science Institute of her university. 

She also holds an MSc in Medical art from the Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification (University of Dundee). During this time she studied human anatomy through anatomical life drawing, sculpture, and cadaver dissection sessions in a modern dissection lab and attended facial reconstruction, 3D modelling, wax modeling and digital medical illustration techniques workshops.

In 2020 she commenced creating her own online and in person workshops and classes related to Medical Bodies (2020, School of Machines, Making and Make Believe) and Creative biology (CYENS Thinker Maker Space, 2021). After her residency at the CYENS Thinker Maker Space in 2021, Marisa was awarded a scholarship to study at one of Fab foundation’s interdisciplinary programs in the intersections of biology, digital fabrication and textiles, fabricademy, at the Basque Biodesign centre, in Bilbao, Spain.