Bacteria dye - the pigment of the future

Navn
Monica Louise Hartvigsen
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Design
Institut
Bygningskunst og Design
Program
Furniture Design - Products, Materials and Contexts
År
2020
Udmærkelser
Nationalbankens Jubilæums Hæderslegat

The textile industry faces major challenges in becoming more climate-friendly due to a large water consumption, CO2 consumption and use of toxic chemicals. For my graduation project, I have therefore examined, how bacterial dye can be used in an industrial textile company, the textile company Gabriel, as a climate-friendly alternative to the synthetic dyes normally used.

I used my graduation project to investigate, as a designer, the opportunities I see in bacteria dye. I designed via what I called a three-step-scenario.

The present scenario (scenario 1) is based on the dye colors I produced exclusively with bacteria dye.

The 1-2 years scenario (scenario 2) is based on the previous scenario, but I also investigated how the bacteria colors would look like, if it were intensified; for that, I mixed bacteria dye with bafixan dye (a synthetic disperse dye).

The up to 5 years scenario (scenario 3) is based on the two previous scenarios, but I added colors from the Ittens twelve-spectrum color circle, so I could imagine having all colors available to dye with bacteria.

I used colors I created in each of the three scenarios to design different color combinations for my final textile design, which consists of a woven polyester textile in 36 different colorways – 12 colorways in each scenario.

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Det Kongelige Akademi understøtter FN’s verdensmål

Siden 2017 har Det Kongelige Akademi arbejdet med FN’s verdensmål. Det afspejler sig i forskning, undervisning og afgangsprojekter. Dette projekt har forholdt sig til følgende FN-mål

NATIONALBANKENS JUBILÆUMS HÆDERSLEGAT

Juryen sagde bl.a.:
"With an awareness of the impact of the textile industry on the environment Monica sought to find alternative methods to the synthetic dyeing process.  ... In addition to the sustainability objectives, UN goals, probing academic research and scientific explorations Monica also produced sensitive and tangible textile solutions on a high artistic level. This innovative and visionary project holistically uses design to find creative solutions for the future.