In conversation with biodesign researcher Chiara Juriatti
–by Zara Korutz
We have enough material on our planet. We should put more thought into how to recycle that. There are also biodesign approaches that help mending clothes, where with the help of microorganisms, patches can just close up holes. –Chiara Juriatti
The global fashion industry has reached a destructive inflection point. According to theroundup.org, textile production generates over 42 million tons of plastic waste per year, making the fashion industry the second-highest polluting industrial sector with 60% of all clothing material made of a petroleum based synthetic materials.
Furthermore, 92 million tons of clothing ends up in landfills each year. This waste—through overproduction, over consumption, and inefficient processes— has multiple negative environmental impacts including natural resource depletion, water usage, chemical pollution, exploitative labor practices, deforestation, endangered species, animal suffering and habitat destruction.
Biodesign practices based on cultivation and growth of living cells to manufacture new textiles appears to be the leading innovative revolutionary solution to fashion’s devastation. Still biodesign comes with certain ethical considerations including questions around the manipulation and engineering of living organisms in relationship to consent, ownership, and authority. Also, the impact of consumption still affects biodesign from every stage of the garment’s lifecycle — extraction, production, use and disposal—including end-of-life options.
New York based fashion researcher Zara Korutz discussed philosophical ideas of biodesign with Vienna based art historian and researcher Chiara Juriatti whose research lies within contemporary art at the threshold of technology and climate change with a focus on biodesign, particularly the use of living organisms in fashion. Juriatti questions whether or not biodesign can save the planet if it is co-opted by capitalism and claims that conscious consumption is essential, along with a thoughtful biodesign approach that is not just for human benefit, but instead works with the natural life cycle of living organisms.
The following conversation took place during a hot early August day in Italy, while the two academics were attending the 25th World Philosophy Congress held at the Sapeinza Universita di Roma. The spirit of the dialogue is meant to inspire conscious thinking. As Gil Scott-Heron’s famous 1970 song title “The revolution will not be televised” suggests, you can’t be a passive participant in change. If you want to be part of the environmental revolution, then action first starts in the mind.
NKM/Zara Korutz: I view myself as a revolutionary academic–reshaping boundaries and breaking through institutionalized knowledge. What drew you to this particular subversive area within art that’s connected to fashion?
Chiara Juriatti: Oh, that’s a very good question. I think because I always had an anger against capitalism and the politics that go with it in the Western world. To really think about practices that we do in everyday life that are maybe not, but maybe harmful. That really drew me in, that you don’t have to go with the system, that you can go against the system and, yeah, make people aware. That drew me in a lot because I personally was very frustrated with the politics that Western states are practicing.
I live in perpetual frustration that teeters on anger and then goes back to frustration and then into problem solving mode.
Yeah. Exactly.
I really enjoy and value that your perspective within the fashion biodesign realm is from an outsider’s perspective. And I find your research to be positioned in a criticality way that’s questioning certain biodesign thoughts, practice, and theory of the moment.
And it just happened to go into that direction. At first, I just dealt with bioart in my master’s program and then I found these wearable technologies that I found very appealing to me. It started with those plates that you can put on your body where fungi and what’s called, lichen, can grow. It fascinated me to have another living being in its living state on your body. Some people find it disgusting. I find it very interesting.
When I started my PhD, I just had this one variable, so I really didn’t have anything to go off of, and then I researched more into the fashion department because that was more speculative design that I found dealt with this exact way of designing. So, incorporating living beings. That’s how I kind of got into the fashion field. It was just by chance. I didn’t even aim to do that. And I was very optimistic at first. The designers, the artists, they market their designs as very groundbreaking, helpful and sustainable. I kind of just copied that and just believed in it. And then my supervisor said, why do you believe that? Please just look if that actually is the result of it, if they are really fulfill what they’re promising. So, I started to do that, and I got very, very pessimistic and very, very critical.
I want to talk about this notion, because this is what I find so intriguing about your work. To your point, speculative, conceptual, biodesign within the fashion realm, is considered the future and the solution to the problems of our environmental crisis. When I heard your criticality, I was taken back. How could one be critical of something that is supposed to save the world? So, expand on how this could be problematic.
I had a thought about what fashion and nature have in common. And then I thought about care, which is a very feminist motive or approach, and I thought, we don’t really care about our clothes. We discard them or we buy them, wear them for one season, and then we just neglect them. We don’t mend them anymore. And it’s the same with nature. We discard, we destroy it. I think we should stop viewing fashion and nature as material.
We don’t need new materials; we just need new approaches. And I always thought about biodesign as a new approach, as a very subversive feminist approach against capitalism, against those patriarchal politics. But the work that biodesigners do play into capitalism. Because if you want to use those new materials—like the mycelium— on a grand scale, you need a lot of capital and you need investors and who can afford that. It’s mostly investors that might not have the best interest in nature, really.
This idea about capitalism and marketing— the ploy to sell ethics—I think that’s what you’re challenging. I always reference this idea of vegan leather, which is selling the idea of fashion for good, if you will, but many of it is made out of petroleum oil. It’s interesting that you find with plant-based biodesign, the same concept. Corruption of capitalism is what you’re suggesting.
They always say, no, it’s a collaboration between the human and the living organism. But actually, it’s also just using it as material. It’s material you can sell.
So, are you talking about the actual plant or the bio matter— mycelium, fungi, whatever the grown bio flora is—having its own life cycle, is what you’re saying. Where is the problematic component? Is it the actual material or is it the capitalistic structure?
I think it’s our approach. Because we just consume and consume. They deactivate the organism, or they harvest the organism. It’s killing. They put it in the oven and then it’s dead. And I don’t think if you want to create this new revolution, as they call it, this new world where we live peacefully with nature, where we respect it. I don’t think that bringing in killing of an organism could lead to that.
So, your premise is that death cannot lead to life?
Well it can, yes, that’s the life cycle, of course. Life is based on death, as always. We live off the death of other organisms. But this biodesign process is always on our timeline. We grow it in a lab, and then we put it in the oven. It is dead. And then we wear it, and we put it in the trash again, for it to compost. Whereas in real nature, for example, we might pluck some fruit off a tree, and the organism is free to die on its own. But I think here we dominate it.
The euthanasia of the organism.
If you want to call it that.
So, what is the proposed solution to what you’re now framing as a kind of co-opted or corrupted biodesign infrastructure for the sake of capitalism? What really solves the issues that fashion has placed within the global environmental crisis?
Well, I think we have enough material on our planet. We should put more thought into how to recycle that. There are also biodesign approaches that help with mending clothes, where with the help of microorganisms, patches can close up holes. I think that’s a good way to really collaborate with an organism and use materials that are already there. Because we have enough. And we just discard and discard. Again, with biodesign, they say, okay, life is based on death, so we play into this cycle, but that just means we’re always thinking about discarding the clothing again. As we say, it’s compostable, you know, but why do we always have to throw it away? Why can we not repurpose? I think that’s the way that fashion should go. I think biodesign is not made to be practiced on such a grand scale. I think it should stay an underground practice because I don’t know if the laboratories that you would need, and all the scientists lead to a sustainable industry. I don’t know the numbers, because no one tells you the numbers, how expensive this is, but I think it’s very expensive.
And the vast amount of resources that are now polluting, again, the environment.
Exactly.
I really appreciate your alternative research practice to what is considered conceptual and positioned as the savior within fashion. I think it’s really important for all of us to rethink how we consume and examine our consumption patterns. And so that is the challenge that I take away from your perspective.
I think in 2026 the EU will not allow throwing away textiles anymore. So, you cannot put it into your landfill, uh, trash bins. Um, but they don’t have any idea how they will collect the clothing. Then they don’t know how to recycle it or how to transport it to collect it. They just. tell you, oh, you cannot throw it away anymore. So, there are laws or there are laws going to come into place, but we don’t have the practice, the approach yet, how to deal with them. So, I think we should put more effort into this, um, and not into finding even more materials.
Agreed, and I’m so glad I met you in Rome. I find it very heartwarming to find someone that is also critical of the fashion industry. As a two plus trillion-dollar global industry that uses over 360 million barrels of petroleum every year, it’s one the leading causes of our environmental and labor problems. So, I think we have to be critical. We have to remove the veil of the mystique and evaluate our own relationship to fashion. That is the power that we give ourselves and each other as consumers. So, criticality is a must. Thank you, Chiara.
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