Liv Tsim (Bio)

Learning with Microbes in the Age of E‑waste

This presentation explores how biodesign and bio art can become ways of learning with microbes amid electronic‑waste accumulation and intensive resource extraction in the Anthropocene. Focusing on Liv Tsim's previous artworks, it discusses collaborations with microorganisms that can, respectively, bioleach metals and induce calcite precipitation to stabilise heavy metals in soil and self‑heal concrete. Rather than treating microbes as external stakeholders in our society, these works approach them as co‑workers and kin whose capacities reshape how we understand matter, value, and repair. Through practice‑led research, the projects ask how we might learn from microbial capabilities while working toward ecologies in which humans and other species share and sustain environments together. Creative figurings and speculative lenses here materialise situated forms of knowledge and responsibility within contemporary ecologies, and invite us to see materials themselves as tools that bridge scientific inquiry and artistic imagination.