Le Boudoir Numérique met the biofabrication designer Tony Jouanneau, founder of Atelier Sumbiosis, at the Avantex trade fair in Le Bourget last automn. The winner of the Paris Fashion Tech Week public awards in October (read here) says more about how he collaborates with the living “to discover how science, and in particular biology, can improve textile manufacturing processes".

By Ludmilla Intravaia 

Le Boudoir Numérique : What is Atelier Sumbiosis ? 

Tony Jouanneau, designer in textile crafts and bio-technologies : Atelier Sumbiosis is a research laboratory, where textile know-how and science meet, through design research. In nature, the symbiosis consists of the association of living organisms, in order to ensure the reproduction of the species. The experimental and collaborative projects of Atelier Sumbiosis are inspired by this sustainable union, compatible with the environment, to discover how science, and in particular biology, can improve textile manufacturing processes.

Why did you embark on the path of biofabrication, the culture of materials from the living ?

For eight years, I worked in textile ennobling (all the treatments carried out on raw fabrics to give them the characteristics of a finished product, AN). Two years ago, during my specialized master's degree in design and contemporary technology, at ENSCI (french design school in Paris, AN), I felt the need to reorient my practice, following my reflection on health and environmental dangers of creating fabrics. It’s there, at ENSCI, that I met designer Guillian Graves who introduced me to biofabrication. I am currently working on several projects, through which I explore the processes of textile crafts and the sources of pollution that they can generate, in order to emit a concept, a creation hypothesis, centered on a bio-resource. I strive to sensitize artisans, students, people interested in bio-manufacturing and the general public to the use of biomaterials by designing educational tools, likely to introduce them to this topic.

Can you give us a concrete example ?

In the Spiruwheel project, I was interested in a coloring bio-resource, spirulina, a micro-alga containing three basic pigments, green, red and blue, the last element on which I decided to focus my research. To avoid polluting synthetic dyes, the Spiruwheel concept offers craftspeople to revisit classic dye recipes, favoring this bio-material with low water requirements, in order to create a new chromatic circle. I collaborated with the dyeing workshop of the Gobelins manufactory (historic tapestry factory in Paris, AN), which analyzed health and environmental issues related to its work practices. Thus was born a cold coloring process, by diffusion on wool fibers. Claude Yéprémian, engineer specializing in micro-algae from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, lent me his help to deepen the blue extraction method. 

Have you designed an educational tool to popularize your discoveries on spirulina ?

To make myself better understood by my interlocutors, during initiation workshops for example, I designed a mini research laboratory (see photos below, AN). This small-scale demonstrator showcases the resources of clean chemistry (white vinegar, absolute alcohol and natural color-fixing mordants, etc.) necessary for the experiment, as well as the way in which the wool samples, impregnated with pigments of spirulina, are suspended to carry out the coloring by diffusion.

What are your other projects ?

The first project I got down to, Scoby Print (see images below, AN), was born from the collaboration with Sabrina Maroc, the founder of Open BioFabrics (structure dedicated to biofabrication applied to fashion, more info in her interview here, AN), which introduced me to the bacterial cellulose culture, according to research undertaken by the British designer in biofabrication Suzanne Lee. On the basis of this knowledge, I developed a printing process with bacterial liquid to improve screen printing (printing technique with stencils, between the ink and the support, AN) which uses harmful inks and requires the use of large quantities of water. My project, inexpensive in water, consists of printing a second-hand fabric with bacterial cellulose, which also has the merit of revalorizing it, by giving it new properties, such as the rigidity which makes possible, for instance, to fold the fabric. Then, the fabric can be grown again, since it contains dormant bacteria. By replacing it in a very basic nurturing environment, based on fermented tea, sugar and vinegar, it is possible to recreate new inks, in a virtuous and clean cycle.

It’s like making an alliance with the living ...

Absolutely. One of my other projects, Slow Devored (see images below, AN) uses textile devoré (creation of localized transparencies on a fabric made up of two materials, one of which will be eliminated, according to precise patterns, by the action of a chemical gel, AN), a technique which can prove harmful to humans and the environment. I opted for an entomological sublimation of the fabric by its devouring with living bio-decomposers, insects which eat away at the material in the places where I drew my patterns. This project is particularly close to my heart because insects take on the status of craftsmen in a cycle of collaboration with the living. At the beginning of the chain, the Bombyx Mori and its silkworm will produce the fabric and, at the end of the chain, the beetles larvae devour it, to carry out their molting stage, before being put back into breeding, in adulthood and recreate larvae again.

Do you feel an interest of the public in biofabrication ?

I feel a real interest in France, even if we are ten years behind, compared to other countries like England, for example. It must be understood that when one start working with the living, time scales are really different. One must learn to collaborate, with humility, with respect for the living, without being in domestication, mastery of things but rather in letting go. And that requires a profound change of mentality. Often when I chat with professionals, they ask me : What is the purpose of your project ? When will you have results on an industrial scale ? When will you have a finished product ? But the living doesn't work like that. The results are not always reproducible, are sometimes random. It takes time to develop sustainable techniques. So, yes, I feel an interest in biofabrication, it will just be necessary to learn how to take the time to embrace the particular rhythm of this field of experimentation, in order to reach results.

* Atelier Sumbiosis Facebook page is here. Its Instagram account is there. 

* The next edition of Avantex, the high-tech and innovative textile trade fair, will take place at Le Bourget, from February 10 to 13, 2020. More information on the event website here.

* The 7th edition of Fashion Tech Week Paris took place from October 14 to 20, 2019. Read the interview of its co-founder Claire Eliot here.

* Continue reading on biofabrication with these following Boudoir Numérique papers :

- "Biofabrication promotes eco-responsible fashion"

- "Fashion tech at La fabrique du vivant exhibition"