Saturdays (14:00). 27.04, 4.05, 11.05, 18.05.2019
Top: Schillerpromenade 4, 12049
TOP Lab, is happy to announce its collaboration on ‘Mind The Fungi’, a research project of TU Berlin, Institute for Biotechnology and Art Laboratory Berlin (2018-2020). Within this collaboration, TopLab will host a mushroom home-cultivation course for 4 Saturdays from 27.04.19 to 18.05.2019.
By taking the course, you will learn how to isolate and grow mushrooms for different purposes. You will learn to create and shape own mycelium based objects, such as packaging materials, furniture, building materials and even leather. Additionally, you will learn how to set up a culture to grow edible mushrooms.
You will also participate in a mycelium packaging experiment, grow together a mycelium box and ship it per post to test the material’s resistance.
What experience will you get by attending the course?
• Learn directly from TU Berlin scientists and TopLab’s practitioners how to grow fungal mycelium at home for different purposes.
• Bring home some fungi growing on agar plates, a custom shape object made of mycelium and an inoculated bag out of which will grow edible mushrooms.
• Learn how to set up a self-organized mycology laboratory at home.
• Participate into a scientific project about biomaterials.
What are the requirements?
• No prior biology knowledge is needed to attend. Crash course will be given at opportune moments during the course.
• Participation fee of 25€ to book your place (more under terms and conditions).
• Attending the first introductory session is mandatory.
The team:
Prof Dr.-Ing. Vera Meyer, Head of chair at TU Berlin, Department of Applied Molecular Microbiology (AMM)
Dipl. Ing. Bertram Schmidt, Research assistant at TU Berlin, AMM
Dipl. Ing. Carsten Pohl, Research assistant at TU Berlin, AMM
Christian de Lutz, Curator, Researcher & Co-Director of Art Laboratory Berlin
Regine Rapp M.A., Curator, Researcher & Co-Director of Art Laboratory Berlin
Dr. Flavia Barragan, Chemist & Co-founder of TopLab
M.Sc. Alessandro Volpato, Biologist & Co-founder of TopLab
Program:
Day 1 – 27.04.2019, 2 – 6PM
This is the first meeting of the workshop that you are expected to attend for fundamental introduction to the four-week-long workshops.
• Get introduced into the “Mind the Fungi” project
• Mycology* and laboratory crash course
• Start your fungal cultures for the project
*Mycology is the branch of biology concerned in the study of mushrooms
Day 2 – 04.05.2019, 2 – 6PM
• Learn about applications of mycelium as biomaterial
• Learn how to shape a mycelium culture to create objects
• Expand a fungal culture in a jar or in a shaped object
• Isolate a mushroom
Day 3 – 11.05.2019, 2 – 6PM
• Learn about the industry that grows edible mushrooms and how to grow your edible mushrooms
• Expand your culture in a big grow bag and grow the fruits
• Isolate a mushroom
Day 4 – 18.05.2019, 4PM – open end
• Keep isolating your mushrooms
• Network event: beer and mushroom
The last day of the workshop! You will be discussing what you have learned throughout the session and preparing your materials to share with public in pop-up exhibition at Top Transdisciplinary Project Space.
Book your place now!
For further details, do not hesitate to contact us via email: lab@top-ev.de
Pre-registration is required.
https://eventyay.com/e/9a13b699/
Terms and conditions of the registration:
The payment of the fee in advance is mandatory to book a place for the workshop.
In case of overbooking, a waiting list will be created.
In case of cancellation of a reserved place, the ticket will be refunded just in case another participant takes over that place by covering the fee.
Registration deadline: April 24th, 6PM.
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Mind the Fungi
Art Laboratory Berlin together with TU Berlin, Institute for Biotechnology work on the Art & Science project Mind the Fungi, which is dedicated to the research of local mushrooms and current fungal biotechnology.
Mushrooms are used in biotechnology as cell factories to produce antibiotics, immunosuppressants, cholesterol-lowering drugs, antimalarials, insulin, prebiotics, pigments, organic acids, enzymes, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and more. The fungal biotechnology of the 20th century managed to establish itself as an essential platform technology for innumerable branches of industry and thus decisively shapes our daily life and our lifestyle in an invisible way.
At the moment, fungal biotechnology is undergoing a disruptive innovation process, which we want to co-design with citizen scientists in a sustainable manner. Mushrooms, which are produced on the basis of renewable vegetable raw materials in the biotechnological process, are to be converted, with far-reaching consequences, into packaging materials, building materials, and even leather.
In the project Mind the Fungi we use the interdisciplinary concept from STEM to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Art) to expand scientific research with artistic and design-based research. The Institute of Biotechnology works with Berlin citizens, artists and designers to develop new ideas and technologies for mushroom and lichen-based materials of the future. The Artists in Residence programme brings art and design into the project as a constructive source of ideas, multipliers and communicators of scientific issues, and supports the process of sharing research processes and findings with the public.
With the expertise of applied and molecular microbiology in the field of fungal biotechnology (Prof. Meyer), bioprocess engineering (Prof. Neubauer) and art and science communication (Art Laboratory Berlin) the aim of the project is also to establish a new, innovative and interdisciplinary field of research at the TU Berlin, which dares right from the beginning to build a bridge in the growing Citizen Science Community in order to integrate their expertise at an early stage.
