Designers prototyping in the lab: Introducing an extracurricular activity exploring bacterial colouring in a design educational setting

This paper presents research from an ongoing PhD project on microbial colouring applied to textile design practice and education. In this paper, we study how bacterial colouring can be implemented as an extracurricular activity in a design school setting. By conducting a series of three workshop prototypes combining theory and hands-on experience, we explore how bacteria grow, how a special type of pigment-producing bacteria can be applied to textiles, and how to work with aseptic techniques and handle biological waste. As we were interested in how the students experienced the workshops, we gathered insights during the individual workshops and asked them to fill out an evaluation form. To understand how theoretical and practical skills have influenced each other in the workshops, we propose a model. The model is used to understand and expand on how workshops can be used to provide and generate knowledge by combining theory and practice from both bacterial dyeing and textile design. We find that the model can be adapted for further workshop activities combining other design disciplines with an overlapping or adjacent discipline like in this study, where it has been biology.