Elemental Imprints
Bio Design Lab
By viewing materials as part of living, dynamic systems, the project promotes creative approaches that value symbiotic relationships between nature, technology, and culture, aiming to support balanced and respectful coexistence with the environment.
About the Project
Elemental Imprints: Bio Design Lab South Asia, addresses pressing environmental, economic, and social challenges across South Asia by exploring sustainable, non-extractive uses of undervalued local resources such as invasive plants, agricultural byproducts, algae, and industrial waste.
Through a multidisciplinary collaboration involving designers, scientists, craftspeople, engineers, architects, and humanities scholars, it seeks context-specific solutions rooted in local cultures and ecosystems while informed by global perspectives.
Its objectives include transforming overlooked resources into valuable materials, building collaborative networks between South Asian and international experts, fostering innovative design processes, and establishing a Resource Center to share knowledge through a public material library, prototypes, and publications.
Impressions
Visit to Farm 8 and an interaction with artist Rashmi Kaleka during the first meeting for the Elemental Imprints. Bio Design Lab project in New Delhi. | © Goethe-Institut
Hard at work at the first meeting for the Elemental Imprints. Bio Design Lab project in New Delhi. | © Goethe-Institut
Foraged mushroom at Farm 8 during the first meeting for the Elemental Imprints. Bio Design Lab project in New Delhi. | © Goethe-Institut
Collaborators working with Comilla cotton at Echo Stream in Gangtok, Sikkim. | © Goethe-Institut
Artist Lalringhetti Sangsiama and collaborators working with bamboo at Echo Stream in Gangtok, Sikkim. | © Goethe-Institut
Comilla cotton at Echo Stream in Gangtok, Sikkim. | © Goethe-Institut
Field visit to Vallaipadu. Mary Abisha showing seaweed lines, usually submerged below the surface. | © Goethe-Institut
At the Open Lab. Anushka introducing systemic overview of cultivation context. | © Goethe-Institut
At the Open Lab. Seaweed art experiments. | © Goethe-Institut
At the Open Lab. Sea Pulp lampshades by Kanil and Shahdia. | © Goethe-Institut
Partner
Elemental Imprints. Bio Design Lab South Asia is initiated by Goethe-Institut South Asia in consultation with the Bio Design Lab at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG). The documentation Director for the project is Shiv Ahuja.
