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Material Stretch

quest to find sustainable petro alternatives

    




     Photograph by Matthew Genecov 



Chitosan













Chitosan Composites



Psyllium Husk








Agar



Alternative
sculpting
materials


   

Natural
Pigments













Gelatin



Bacterial Cellulose



Starch



Starch + Eggshell



Casein


Mycelium

Damar Resin + Beeswax



Sodium Alginate

REFERENCES




                         


BROOD X CICADAS IN MARYLAND
JUNE 2021







TIMEKEEPERS WORKSHOP JULY 9 AT THE SHED SPACE





The Timekeepers Workshop is a material workshop conducted by Sasha Fishman, coinciding with her first solo exhibition, The Space Between Your Nostrils, at RESORT, and the Brood X emergence. In the early stages of planning the workshop, the artist called on the community to collect the moulted cicada shells from around their homes and walking routes, and to deposit them in designated collection boxes around the city. Locations include Waverly, the Mt. Washington Arboretum, Park School, Goucher College, Charles Village, and more. Please reach out for collection box details and to find one near you!

As an artist who is driven by material exploration, Sasha invites the attendees into her process, utilizing the collected shells to produce a bioplastic.  The group will learn together to extract chitin, a biopolymer found in cicada shells that can be used as a potential replacement for petroleum plastics, and create sheets of translucent material that is compostable.  Participants will also be invited to experiment with sculptural processes, including making molds from cicada wings.

While working in a direct, source-driven relationship to her materials, Sasha has found it important to examine the ethical questions that arise.  She will lead a discussion on the ethics of extraction and shared material resources, questioning the scale of individual versus industrial, how extraction has impacted certain communities, and how to establish an extraction threshold. 

As we engage with the abundance of biomaterial around us, it is exciting and important to consider the immediate potential.  However, we should be conscious of this temporary condition and ask how it changes the environment over a longer period of time.

Are you enjoying all the aspects of the Brood X emergence?

Remember to check out Cicada Mania, the UMD Cicada Crew, + report any cicadas you see to the Cicada Safari App


EXAMPLES OF BIOPLASTICS MADE FROM CHITOSAN, A BIOPOLYMER FOUND IN CICADA + SHRMP SHELLS





^Numbered list courtesy of Cicada Mania



THANK YOU TO BUGSS + THE UMD CICADA CREW FOR SUPPORTING THIS PROJECT