Aquatic Remedies | Material Health: Design Frontiers

Julia Lohman is a professor of contemporary design at Aalto University and the founder of the Department of Seaweed. In her presentation, “Aquatic Remedies”, Lohman shares her work and affinity with seaweed. This remarkable plant is not only edible, it can help restore balance to polluted ecosystems, provide habitat, and serve as a remarkable number of material substitutes. Those substitutes include textiles, vegan leather, parchment, veneer, and even glass. Through her work, Lohman explores a lot of existential questions about the future and the roles of designers. What is clear to her is that we must continue to co-speculate about possible futures we want to achieve and work towards making those possibilities real together.