Kombucha Papermaking: Grow Your Own Paper

From the organizers:

Kombucha—for centuries it’s been brewed as a tangy beverage made of tea and a symbiotic glob of bacteria and yeast. In this bioart papermaking course you will explore a new way to utilize kombucha. It is not only a great source of probiotics—it can also grow a renewable art material!

Using emerging biotech we can grow our art from living materials. Participants will grow paper from a living kombucha culture. We will discuss brewing techniques, and contextualize this process within bioart. Participants will walk away with their own kombucha cultures and parchment-like paper they grew themselves. In addition, students will have a chance to grow their own materials and paint with naturally extracted inks.