Bio Matter Lab (Fernanda Costa)

I’m excited to share that I’ll be presenting the publication, ‘BioFabulations: Embodied Sensemaking for Planetary Care’, at the upcoming Creativity and Cognition(@cc_acm ) conference in London this July! This pictorial draws on a 12-week study with 10-year-olds at a school in Lisbon, exploring how creative, hands-on engagement with biomaterials, combined with digital storytelling, can stimulate children to connect with, value, and care for the natural world. The project presents our methodological assemblage, combining accessible tools which can be adapted and applied in different educational contexts. This work is part of my PhD research in Digital Media at the Interactive Technologies Institute (@iti_larsys ), combining practice-based design research and Human–Computer Interaction. The pictorial was co-authored with my supervisors, Frederico Duarte (@frederico.s.duarte ) and Valentina Nisi (@valentinanisi ), whose guidance and support were invaluable throughout the process. It also feels particularly meaningful that the presentation will take place at Central Saint Martins (@csm_maid ), where I graduated from MA Industrial Design 14 (short!) years ago. Returning to the Granary Building will feel very special. If you're at C&C, please come by. . . . . #sustainablehci #biomaterials #biohci #morethanhumandesign #designresearch

Upcoming publication at @acm_dis 🌊 Our workshop’s proposal on exploring what it means and takes to design for multispecies response-ability through fabulation with tides. Please check out link in bio 🔗 and last post for details. Registration still open! 🤗 Send your expression of interest to [email protected]! This workshop invites participants with diverse backgrounds to imagine stories with tides, to explore response-ability - a notion used by Donna Haraway to cultivate the capacity to respond with other species. As more HCI communities begin to engage with living entities, we seek to move beyond “responsibility” as a solely human moral property towards relational and reciprocal ways of designing-with them. When the entities we “study” begin to respond to one another, their interactions evolve in ways we cannot fully predict, inviting design practice to stay open and caring for these shifting relations. Using tides as a spatial-temporal site of inquiry, we will use speculative fabulation to imagine what multispecies response-ability might look like in place and collectively develop practical guides for examining and incorporating it into design practice. Co-organised with @raphael___kim @biodesign_academy Iohanna Nicenboim, Anton Poikolainen Rosén, @biomatterlab @netta_ofer Serena Pollastri, @heidibigzz @doenjaoogjes and @barati_bahar #morethanhuman #dis26 #designresearch #multispecies #tide

Huge thank you to everyone who attended and brought samples the Growing Bio-HCI workshop @acm_chi last week!

If you are going to DIS’26, consider joining our workshop on Multispecies Response-ability in More-than-human Design Practice: Fabulation with Tides 🌊 Designing across species often assumes a one-way responsibility: the designer thinks, cares, and makes. But what if design takes a step back, intentionally making space for responses to unfold, to emerge in between species? In this workshop at #DIS26, we will explore multispecies response-ability as a design stance: creating conditions in which living beings, shaped by and shaping tidal ecologies, can, in some sense, respond. We will travel to Labrador Nature Reserve, one of Singapore’s natural coastlines, to spend time with the beings that respond to tides. Through on-site exploration and collaborative fabulation, we will 1) develop design approaches that resist speaking for other species, and instead ask: what would it take to stay open to responses? 2) develop open-ended guides for examining and incorporating response-ability in practice. We warmly welcome you from diverse backgrounds, with an interest in multispecies interactions, interspecies communication, coastal/tidal ecologies, feminist-posthuman phenomenology, more-than-human ethics, entangled bodies, open-ended design practice, and speculative fabulation. 📅 14th June, 9:00 AM – 17:00 PM  📍 Conference Venue & Labrador Nature Reserve, Singapore @acm_dis To participate, send your expression of interest to [email protected] by the 21st of May! For more information, please visit link in bio 🔗 Co-organisers: Jiwei Zhou, Raphael Kim, Iohanna Nicenboim, Anton Poikolainen Rosén, Netta Ofer, Fernanda Costa, serena pollastri, Heidi Biggs, Doenja Oogjes, Bahar Barati. #morethanhumandesign #multispecies #HCI #designresearch

Upcoming publication @acm_chi “Growing Bio-HCI at CHI: Exchanging Materials, Tools, Practices, and Artifacts at CHI” aims to grow the ecosystem of Biological Human-Computer Interaction (Bio-HCI) by facilitating a workshop for experienced researchers and practitioners to exchange biomaterial recipes, biofabrication tools, biomaking practices, and biodesigned artifacts. Organized by: Fiona Bell (@fionaabell ), Jingwen Zhou (@jingwen_zhu ), Nadia Campo Woytuk (@nadiacampowoytuk ), Fernanda Soares da Costa (@biomatterlab ), Lauren Thu (@uhohgoodie ), Qiuyu Lu, Katherine Song, Phillip Gough, Cindy (Hsin-Liu) Kao (@hybridbodylab ), Marion Koelle (@marionkoellehci ), Valentina Nisi (@valentinanisi ), and Ron Wakkary (@ron_wakkary )

This week, we at the ‘Interspecies Research Group’ are celebrating the launch of the catalogue for our Interspecies exhibition at MAC/CCB (@macccb.museu ), curated by Mariana Pestana @m.pestana who also edited the book, coordinated by Diogo Montenegro (@montno_r ), and beautifully designed by Joana Lourencinho Carneiro (@joana_lourencinho_carneiro ). Through a ‘nominations’ method, we had the opportunity to co-curate and collaborate on selecting the works, and even contribute our own pieces. I was responsible for selecting works that showcased the remarkable versatility and potential of biomaterials, while honouring the living and once-living beings from which the exhibited matter originated. This included pieces by @m_a_c_h_e_i_a , Fahrenheit 180 (@jeymorris and @lucacarlisle_ ), and @biolablisboa , which supported the execution of these pieces. Catch a glimpse of the works in this video. Get your copy here 👉🏽: https://lnkd.in/eAgYcztq Bartlebooth The book features texts from our team (Mariana Simões @m.tpsimoes , Carlos Pastor Garcia @carlospastorrrr , Anna Bertmark @annabertmark , Bernardo Gaeiras @bernardo.gaeiras ,Katerina Iglezaki @katiglezaki , Mathilde Gouin @maya_neskaa , and Valentina Demarchi @archidem , as well as contributions from Coletivo FIELD, Coletivo Frame, and KWY.studio, alongside two interviews with Studio Ossidiana and SUPERFLEX STUDIO. A few words about the book: What can architecture tell us about the transition from a humanist world to a new posthuman paradigm? And, on the other hand, what does posthumanism reveal about the architecture we create? This book documents a research process surrounding these questions and suggests a hypothesis for reflecting on them. It argues that we are witnessing a new Romanticism, a spirit of work and critical stance that recognizes the interdependencies between people, animals, celestial bodies, technologies, and minerals, among others, and all the parts that constitute the cosmos, and that this spirit is articulated in an interspecies practice.

Calling all researchers and practitioners with hands-on experience with biodesign, biofabrication, and biomaterials to join us in Growing Bio-HCI at the 2026 ACM CHI Conference! This workshop aims to facilitate a time and space to exchange materials, tools, practices, and artifacts, as well as discuss practical challenges that designers face and opportunities for how this research can flourish in the future 🌱🐝🪱 Submissions are due February 12 and should be in an A5 page format to be added to a collective zine. Learn more and submit here: /view/growing-bio-hci Organizing team: @fionaabell , @jingwen_zhu , @nadiacampowoytuk , @biomatterlab , @uhohgoodie , Qiuyu Lu, Katherine Song, Phil Gough, @hybridbodylab , @marionkoellehci , @valentinanisi , and @ron_wakkary

Calling all researchers and practitioners with hands-on experience with biodesign, biofabrication, and biomaterials to join us in Growing Bio-HCI at the 2026 @acm_chi conference! This workshop aims to facilitate a time and space to exchange materials, tools, practices, and artifacts, as well as discuss practical challenges that designers face and opportunities for how this research can flourish in the future 🌿🐝🪱 Submissions are due February 12 and should be in an A5 page format to be added to a collective zine. Learn more and submit here: /view/growing-bio-hci Organizing team: @fionaabell , @jingwen_zhu , @nadiacampowoytuk , @biomatterlab , @uhohgoodie , Qiuyu Lu, Katherine Song, Phil Gough, @hybridbodylab , @marionkoellehci , @valentinanisi , and @ron_wakkary

Coisas do Brasil 🇧🇷 Pedalling in Lagoa Caipirinha de Caju Havaianas Bico de papagaio 🦜 Lagartixa 🦎 Orelhão

Post-holiday share 🌊🗒 In the few weeks I spent by the eastern Irish coast, I gave myself a pleasurable task: to combine noticing practices with beachcombing. I visited the same beach daily for two weeks, scanning for seaweeds to collect and categorise. It was fascinating to watch how the seaweeds changed, their colours shifting with each stage of wetness and drying, from vivid greens and reds to deepened browns. I went to the shore at different moments of the tide — just after high water, when fragments still gleamed with salt, and at the lowest ebb, when whole fronds lay revealed and easier to gather. Back inside my chalet, I pressed my finds. Before leaving for Ireland, I had already prepared my tools at @biolablisboa where I cut some wood, drilled holes, and fashioned the rest from metal to build my own seaweed press. These little plays with sea and shore became four pressed prints.( With some help from ChatGPT in identification), they are likely to be (from top left ot bottom right): A mix: Cladophora sp. (green), possibly Taonia atomaria (brown), and Palmaria palmata or Mastocarpus stellatus (red) Polysiphonia sp. or Dasya sp. (delicate red algae) Dictyota dichotoma (forkweed, a brown alga) Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce) and Palmaria palmata (dulse) These are the results: four small ocean archives, my sea keepsakes, caught between wood, metal, and paper. I was glad to recognise Dulse (Palmaria palmata), which has been harvested on the Irish coast for centuries, dried on rocks or nets in the sun, and eaten as a salty snack. #seaweedpress #seaweeds #noticing #beachcombing #palmariapalmata #dulse #irishseaweeds

Embracing Irish summer, with all it’s charms. Cliff walks, quick ocean dips, clear views, seaweeds, cyanotype explorations, wild looking jellyfish, many cups of tea, a few glasses of wine. . . . #irishsummer #dulse #palmariapalmata #cyanotype #irishsea

The beginning of the Agar Value-Chain 🌊: Beach wrack or valuable raw material? Gelidium harvest in Portugal is entangled with a history that dates back to the Second World War, when the first agar processing factory was established, influenced by Japan’s post-war scarcity, being once one of its biggest exporters; The industry flourished until the eighties, but only one processing site, remains. Its decline is attributed to environmental challenges, economic constraints, and increased global competition.The gelidium harvesting process requires strenuous human resources; this practice is concentrated in São Martinho do Porto, where divers go as deep as 8 metres for many hours daily in cold and turbulent waters. In a ‘good’ season, divers harvest 2000 tons from the rocks, with an additional 500 tons of gelidium mixed with other seaweeds that wash ashore on the beach. Locals, primarily fishermen, collect these lower-grade seaweeds in trucks, which only fetch a third of the price but still provide surplus income… This valuable wrack is regarded as ‘unsightly’ by the local population, who often request the council for their removal as even pickers cannot remove them entirely.’ Extract from the pictorial: ‘Making SeaFoam: An Autobiographical Design Journey Engaging Local Ecologies Through Making. ‘ (link in bio) 📸And my favourite picture of the Gelidium collectors. #agar #gelidium #hciresearch #dis2025 #biomaterials #schi #seaweeds