Together with a range of artists, designers and scientists in the West Midlands and abroad, we invite you to join us to experiment, play and appreciate our living world together.
“There are more bacteria in your gut than there are stars in our galaxy. It is estimated that every human contains 100 trillion bacteria, most of which live in our guts. By comparison, The Milky Way contains between 100 and 400 million stars.”
**—**Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes
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In the final days of 2019, reports of a new strain of coronavirus began spreading across news stations worldwide. Over the coming months we saw the many different ways countries and people would relate to the epidemic, and the tragic loss of millions of lives globally. At this time many voices could be heard supporting a ‘science-based’ approach to dealing with the transmission of Covid-19, as well as many opposing voices denouncing the advice and guidance of scientists and healthcare professionals - particularly in the western world.
The Covid-19 global pandemic demonstrated an urgency for wider public engagement around microbes, the importance of reconnecting with the role bacteria and viruses play in our day to day lives, and the largely unknown work happening in kitchens and studios by artists and the public in order to better understand this unseen world beyond the lens of disease and decay, to one of regeneration and remediation.
Over the last decade we have seen a rise in public interest and literacy for microbes and living materials; environmental awareness, rewilding projects, best-selling books about gut health to name just a few. During the pandemic people found renewed interest in gardening, being in green spaces and baking - all working with/in proximity to living cultures and organisms to create something enjoyable. BAB Lab aims to continue those positive connections between humans and the living world and build on the amazing work of bioartists, kitchen scientists, worm farmers and many more in the West Midlands and beyond.
*“The pandemic has provided the public with a greater knowledge of the microbial world that is now connected to their daily lives - even though we have never lived a day without these microbes before. The public have become more intuitive to these issues, so much so that an artist does not need to explain [as] much in the gallery or have to bridge the scientific knowledge gap and expression of the art.”
—*Pei Ying Lin
Laurie Ramsell is an artist living and working in Birmingham, UK. Over the last six years, he has explored, cultivated, and created living artworks using bacteria, yeasts and slime molds.
Throughout this time collaboration has been an important part of his practice, working with creative practitioners; designers, dancers, curators to name a few; as well as scientists, researchers and teachers from all over the world.
BAB Lab was born out of the culmination of those connections - a platform to share a wealth of knowledge and skills from across the region and the world.
Laurie regularly delivers workshops with arts organisations and schools around the UK. He currently works part-time as a Learning Producer for BOM, combining science and art across topics from the history of medicine to astrobiology, and also co-directs Modern Clay ceramics studio with five other artists, researching and developing a 3D printer to print different clay bodies.