Living Materials, Living Worlds

Living Materials,
Living Worlds

Learning Planet Institute
8bis rue Charles V, Paris

February 23 · 2026
14:00 — 18:00

The Event

Living Materials, Living Worlds is a biodesign conference for those who work with life, and anyone curious about how.

What happens when materials breathe, grow, decay, heal, and remember?
When design becomes a conversation between species, time, and care?

We’re inviting you into questions like:
How do you design for growth and circularity rather than extraction?
What does being a designer or artist mean when your material is alive?
How does working with other species reshape your ethics and aesthetics?

✧ Artist and research talks
✺ Bacterial cellulose workshop & Living soils workshop
✩ Shared questions, slimy materials, and strange new worlds

Come grow, question, regenerate, and imagine with us.

Speakers

Christopher Bellamy

Biodesigner and engineer, trained at Cambridge University and Central Saint Martins, whose work explores how humans can live more symbiotically with other species in an age of climate crisis. Starting his career in the automotive industry, he shifted towards nature-led solutions, focusing on living materials and regenerative design. Through his research projects Bio Crafted and Yanaa, he develops nature-based technologies and experiences that bridge science, craft, and storytelling. He most recently co-created a bioluminescent algae dress in collaboration with Iris van Herpen, following in-depth collaborations with communities and researchers in French Polynesia.

Lucia Giron

London‑based biodesigner and researcher exploring how biological materials and processes can share ecological knowledge beyond the lab. She works with algae‑based and other photosynthetic systems to make these processes accessible and participatory. At Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry, she develops photosynthesis‑powered battery alternatives, treating biodesign as a practice where caring for living systems generates both material results and ecological understanding.

Corentin Bisot

Post-doctoral researcher in the Van Gestel Group at the EMBL institute (Germany), where he currently studies the collective strategies of soil bacterial predators. Before that he studied the growth and shape of symbiotic mycorrhizal networks. During his PhD in Amsterdam and Lyon, working with Toby Kiers, Thomas Shimizu and Christophe Godin, he contributed to describing how those networks structure over time and move nutrients across space. Beyond his scientific work, Corentin is passionate about public engagement and education. He co-founded L’Atelier des Sols Vivants, an association dedicated to raising awareness about soil and alternative agricultural practices through workshops and events.

Michael Sedbon

Life‑sciences researcher and artist exploring how computation and living systems co‑evolve. A former Cyber Synthetic Biologist at OXMAN, he builds bio‑hybrid machines and experiments with storing digital information in vegetal media, using organisms as active computational agents. Through systems involving algae, plants, and slime molds, his work reflects on how biological processes can unsettle technological assumptions and open new ways of imagining computational life.

Iri Berkleid

Paris-based artist who works with microbial cultures to shape cellulose as it grows, rethinking pictorial and sculptural practices through biomediality. Rooted in experimental techniques developed in New York, her practice explores how biological processes can alter our perception of the body within its environment and renegotiate our understanding of the abject and the sublime. Her sculptures and organic iconography preserve the traces of their own formation, drawing on dreamlike visions, emerging contemporary mythologies, and spiritualities arising from the microscopic world to question how matter and psyche intertwine.

Schedule

14:00 – 14:15 Welcome Ceremony
14:15 – 14:35 Chris Bellamy “Crafting Life”
14:35 – 15:00 Lucia Giron “Designing with Friction: Allowing for Emergence in an Industry of Control“
15:00 – 15:25 Corentin Bisot “Design Principles of the Mycellium, How a Network Emerges From Randomness“
15:25 – 15:35 Tea & Coffee Break
15:35 – 15:55 Michael Sedbon “Engineered Bio-Hybrid Machines for Interaction Design“
15:55 – 16:15 Iri Berkleid “Hybrid Transitory Sculptures : the Ecosystem of Grown Art“
16:15 – 16:20 5 Minute Break
16:20 – 16:50 Panel Discussion
16:50 – 17:50 Kombucha Leather Biomaterials Workshop & Living Soils Workshop (led by Corentin Bisot through the living soils workshop organisation)
17:50 – 18:00 Closing Ceremony