»Fermenting Textiles« is a unique transdisciplinary research and exhibition project that puts active matter at the center: it connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists, as well as more-than-human actors.
The unique multi-national, multi- and trans-disciplinary cooperation that makes up the group exhibition explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material to produce complex dyeing for various uses – from traditional hunter shirts in Burkina Faso to kimono silk dyeing in Japan.
Cross-cultural research methods play a key role in the project. Anthropologist Laurence Douny has worked with dyers in Burkina Faso to meticulously document the long Vouwo mud-dyeing process, which involves soil of different origins, iron ore, and various plant materials.
Microbiologists Regine Hengge and José I. Hernández Lobato have studied the complex interactions of soil bacteria with plants and fabrics in the dyeing process and will visually re-enact these in the exhibition.
Furthermore, Hengge reaches across fields by photographically creating patterns that combine images of bacterial biofilms from this scientific research and of the West African textiles studied by Douny. These have been printed on fabrics for making new shirts, thus completing a transdisciplinary journey from »shirt to shirt«.
The exhibition »Fermenting Textiles« is part of the __matter Festival 2025, organised by the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity, Image Space Material«, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
