BENGALURU: You can make coasters, bags, lamps and even chairs out of mushrooms... Maria Joseph (27), a product designer by profession, can show you how. Joseph is holding a workshop on using mushroom mycelium as a raw material for making everyday products.
The workshop will give hands-on experience of working with fungi. It is happening on May 21 at Bangalore Creative Circus.
“I am interested in growing my own materials in the future. There are a lot of designers who are at the forefront of this revolution. That is why designers are jumping in; it’s not just up to scientists anymore. People are coming up with lamps or packaging materials,” explains Joseph.
In this workshop, she is collaborating with Nuvedo, a mushroom cultivation company. “What I’m trying to do is take that knowledge and my own of how to design a product and make these really simple coasters from mushrooms,” she adds.
The whole process takes close to two weeks. “The making time is about 45 minutes though,” she says. Difficult to think of mushrooms as a raw material? Joseph says it is quite versatile in nature. “People are making leather out of it,” she adds.
Giving an example of how it’s done, she says, “It’s like having a potted plant at home. The roots of that plant take the shape of the pot. It’s the same thing. The roots of the mushroom, called mycelium, take the shape of the mould of the pot. And we let it grow in that pot. Afterward, we take it out and dry it,” says Joseph.