When Van Eyck meets biotechnology
Bio-inspiration specialist Glimps aims to link art, history and science during Ghent’s big Van Eyck year
Getting ready for a bio-future
Glimps has its roots in ReaGent, an open bio-lab created in 2015 by a group of friends who wanted to share equipment for bio-science projects and encourage others to get involved. One of the ideas they were keen to work on involved using living organisms to make materials.
In particular, there are ways of getting mycelium, the part of a mushroom that grows underground, to create new, biodegradable materials from common kinds of organic waste. This idea really took off, and after several years of research and development one of the team – Elise Elsacker – decided to pursue a PhD on the subject at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Co-operative science
This was the moment for a rethink. They wanted to carry on experimenting in an open and inclusive way, but also to become self-sustaining. The result was Glimps.
“We want to find a balance, where we work at a professional level, but still keep this open-innovation principle,” explains Jasper Bloemen, one of the co-founders of Glimps, together with Elsacker and Winnie Poncelet. “We are a co-operative because we believe that by sharing knowledge we create momentum and a community of people who all believe in this bio-future.”
And while Glimps aims to make money, any return will be re-invested in the co-operative and like-minded partner organisations. “We don’t want to get rich from this, we want to change something.”
In the future, we are not going to slaughter animals; we are going to grow meat or engineer alternatives from micro-organisms
Yet Glimps also resembles a science-based start-up company. “It’s the same struggle as a start-up,” says Bloemen. “You have an idea and then maybe you have to change, depending on how the market evolves and how you can fit in.”
Early on, they put a lot of effort into the use of mycelium materials in new products, developing techniques and encouraging designers to explore the possibilities. “Eventually we had to put that on hold, because it’s just too new for product design,” Bloemen explains.
There are issues, for example, with certifying the materials and with scaling-up production that have yet to be solved. “It is easy to produce a prototype, but then it gets difficult.”
Mycelium pressed into tiles
So Glimps pivoted and now focuses on what Bloemen calls “bio-inspiration”, using the possibilities offered by biotechnology to inspire organisations, scientists and designers to rethink what they do. It works with companies on how they can join the circular economy, for example by using biodesign to treat waste streams and turn them into useful and profitable products.
It also give talks and leads master classes on biotechnology. And it designs installations with a focus on the sensory experience of bioscience, such as the Growing City installation in last year’s Post-Fossil Ghent exhibition.
The Van Eyck project will be one of its big initiatives for 2020, running from May until the end of October in the Gerard de Duivelsteen, a 13th-century gothic fortress in the centre of Ghent. The owners of the Duivelsteen are developing a youth empowerment project for the location called Broei, which will have a trial run in 2020.
Van Eyck 2.0
Since this overlaps with the Van Eyck year in Ghent, Glimps started to think about possible connections between the artist, the mediaeval setting, and what it could bring to the empowerment project in terms of innovation, sustainability and entrepreneurship.
In the end they identified four themes to explore in connection with Van Eyck’s “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb”, otherwise known as the Ghent Altarpiece. The first is food.
“That is pretty obvious,” says Bloemen. “In the painting, a lamb is being sacrificed, so what about the place of meat in the future? We are not going to slaughter animals anymore; we are going to grow meat or engineer alternatives from micro-organisms.”
Then there are the vivid colours in the Altarpiece, which leads to a reflection on sustainable colours in fashion, for example, and how products from algae or bacteria can be used to replace chemical dyes that have a severe impact on the environment.
There is still this idea that we can change DNA and cure disease so that people will live indefinitely
The next theme is materials, not mycelium this time but bacterial cellulose devised by Flemish biotechnologist and artist Johan Geysen. This paper substitute – Geysen calls it “papur” – can be made into panels measuring two by four metres, and the idea is to get people to paint on it using bacterial pigments.
The final theme is health, connecting with the Fountain of Eternal Youth in the middle of the Altarpiece. “With recent evolutions in biotechnology, such as gene editing, there is still this idea that we can change DNA and cure disease so that people will live indefinitely,” says Bloemen.
The project will explore these themes through workshops and lectures by experts, while artists will be invited to the Duivelsteen to take inspiration from the ideas and materials created on the spot, and to exhibit bio-art.
A second Glimps project in the pipeline for 2020 will look at how organic waste streams in Ghent can be put to more unique uses than simply converting them into biogas to be burned for energy. “We will be collaborating with universities and design schools in Belgium, putting together teams of students, post-docs and PhDs to work on specific waste streams,” says Bloemen.
The main industrial partner of the project is Suez Belgium, with support due from Circular Flanders. As well as developing new solutions for the city, this will also give participants valuable experience in entrepreneurship.
Photos: ©Glimps (top); ©Frederik Van Allemeersch (centre)
