Designer Aroussiak Gabrielian says each cloak can grow up to 22 crops
Aroussiak Gabrielian says she was inspired to create what is believed to be the world's first wearable farm after seeing what her body could provide for her newborn.
The project, Posthuman Habitats, is a vest or cloak that grows plants and crops using fertilizer from insects and human waste. The vests are currently on display in Beijing as part of an exhibition called Human (un)limited.
They are designed to provide sustenance for the wearer in a future world where climate change has degraded the soil and people are forced to flee floods and other climate impacts.
Gabrielian, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Southern California and a landscape architect, spoke with As It Happens guest host Helen Mann about her project. Here is part of their conversation.
Can you describe for us what these wearable farms currently look like and how they're actually worn?
The project uses technology that already exists in creating vertical gardens throughout the world, particularly the soilless system that was developed by the ... French botanist Patrick Blanc.
It's a layer of moisture retention felt fabric onto which … the seeds are directly placed and watered until they germinate and then they're uncovered and it takes about two weeks for the base material, which is microgreens, to grow to a kind of full level before they're harvested.
So the garments themselves are kind of a lush green and bright purple depending on what's grown....
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HT: Marginal Revolution
