SKIN Farming coll. II

Symbiosis Carbon Future - Tactile Narratives of Personal Carbon Economy project

What if we decentralize the carbon offsetting responsibilities and scale them down to the individual level? What if individuals have daily carbon caps, and everyone has to offset every gram of carbon dioxide they emit? What if carbon dioxide can be marketized and monetized on an individual level?

Personal Carbon Economy proposed a possible economic model and a collection of design interventions into a not so far-fetched near future of personal carbon cap and trade. The SKIN Farming jacket and SKIN Garden dress are part of the collection that exist in this Carbon sustainable future.

The two garments are incubators for living algae beads. Citizens will wear the garments and use body heat to grow algae and gain carbon credits through photosynthesis. Workers wear a SKIN Farming jacket as a side-job for extra income, while the SKIN Garden dress works as a luxury personal statement. All wearers embraced new symbiotic lifestyles with algae, and adapted new daily rituals based on algae's habits.

The surreal present of the garments can provoke physical preparations for transferring awareness to actions in Anthropogenic challenges.

(Client)

The Museum of Design in Atlanta

(Year)

2022-2023

(Recognitions)

FastCo. World Changing Ideas

100 Design of Year Design360

WIRED Creative Hack Award

Core77 Design Awards

SF Design Week Award

Details

Concept Video

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SKIN Farming Jacket

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The Skin Farming algae jacket using body heat to cultivate algae and offset CO2, envisioned as a future side-job for extra income.

In 2042, the Al-cology, one of the global leading algae production corporation, launched the pilot project called Skin Farming, attempting to overcome the challenge of increasing needs of algae cultivation for super-food and bio-fuel by taking advantages of the carbon exchange system.

Skin Farming recruits urban algae farmers to cultivate algae by wearing algae jackets. Human body heat is the desired temperature for algae to thrive. Farmers also follow an instruction to facilitate the growth by shaking the body and exposing to sunlight. In addition to the paycheck from Al-cology, urban algae farmer can gain extra carbon credits by offsetting CO2 while cultivating algae, which they can sell for dollars on The World Carbon Bank platform.

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SKIN Garden Dress

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Carbon sustainability has become a value system rather than a purely political behavior within the Carbon Union. Citizens are prompted to embrace a new symbiotic lifestyle with algae to reduce their carbon emissions.

Carbon Garden Dress from Valentino 2043 Spring Collection serves as a personal statement of Symbiosis lifestyle and carbon consciousness for high society, whose design is inspired by the Skin Farming algae jacket.

Carbon Garden Dresses incubate genetically altered Spirulina that is cultivated by the wearer’s body temperature. These dresses can absorb CO2 efficiently and release fresh O2 for wearers to breathe. In addition, wearers can harvest the organisms as main daily nutritions instead of spending carbon credits to purchase other foods.

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