Department of Seaweed
A project from the mind of artist Julia Lohmann.
German-born designer and researcher Julia Lohmann investigates and critiques the ethical and material value systems underpinning our relationship with flora and fauna. She is Professor of Contemporary Design at Aalto University, Finland, and directs her eponymous Helsinki-based design practice. Julia studied at the Royal College of Art, where she has also taught and completed an AHRC-funded collaborative PhD scholarship between the RCA and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
As designer in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2013, she established the Department of Seaweed, a transdisciplinary community of practice exploring the marine organisms' potential as a design material. In the Department of Seaweed experts from design, craft, science and anthropology collaborate and share their knowledge to create materials and processes with which to make materials and objects from seaweed.
Julia Lohmann’s work is part of major public and private collections worldwide and has received awards, bursaries and support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the British Council, Jerwood Contemporary Makers, D&AD, Stanley Picker Gallery, the Arts Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.