SQUIDCUT

SQUIDCUT investigates our fascination with squid and synthetic biology.

SYNTHESIS : The collection uses the science lab coat as a starting point both in artwork and in pattern cutting.  This symbolic piece of clothing is abstracted into various pattern cuts as it fuses with circular squid shapes.

Digital artwork has been created using microscopic images provided by synthetic biologist Matthew Jones from the University of Cambridge.  Jones was investigating reflectin, a protein responsible for the squid's iridescent colour changing properties.             

Synthetic biology is a new area of science that breeds both fear and hope. 

Our unease with “reconstructing nature” is palpable, as humans now possess the ability to alter and create new organisms that have designed functions of our choice.   This fear lurks in our collective consciousness, a fear we may go too far.

It is however matched by our fascination with the building blocks of the biological world and the potential health and energy solutions this area of science can bring.  

Who determines the parameters of what can be created and how it is used? 

Read the interview with fashion journalist Anna Battista for SQUIDCUT.