(In)Visible Membrane

In 2009 Sonja Bäumel graduated from Contextual Design (then called IM) with the project (In)Visible Membrane. What happens if we make the micro world of the human body perceivable, and what happens if we use bacteria to improve our health? With her research project, Bäumel wanted to confront people with the fact that the human body is a large host of bacteria, and dived into the basics of microbiology during an internship at the Wageningen University (Netherlands). She experimented with skin bacteria and their responses to textiles. “The (In)visible membrane confronts scientific data and methods with fashion design (…..). I want to create a second living layer, a membrane for exchange, on the human body (…). The human body does not end with its skin, but it is invisibly expanding into space. The hidden membrane is something between our body and our environment”.

In 2012 Bäumel was awarded with the Outstanding Artist Award Experimental Design, for the project Textile Anatomy, from the BMUKK Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture of Vienna. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Ars Electronica Center (AT), Anthology Film Archives New York (USA); MAK Museum of Applied Arts (AT); Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (TW), Museum of Natural History Vienna (AT) or ZKM Center for Art and Media (DE). 

Sonja Bäumel is heading the Jewellery Department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in
Amsterdam, as well as lecturing and giving workshops at various academies and universities in the world.