Breathing chandeliers and algae sculptures: bionic art comes to the V&A
Arborea, based in Imperial College’s White City innovation hub, was featured in the Financial Times.
Arborea, founded by Julian Melchiorri, created Exhale, a large bionic chandelier composed of 70 delicately veined plastic leaves contain green microalgae, whose photosynthesis absorbed carbon dioxide from the air and released oxygen. Hanging in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Exhale was the first living addition to the museums permanent collection. Exhale is an object of remarkable beauty that symbolises a growing synthesis of art and bioscience.
Arborea had already won grants from the government’s Innovate UK research agency, the EU’s Climate-KIC initiative and SynbiCITE, the synthetic biology centre at Imperial College. The next step, Melchiorri said, would be to raise several million pounds from investors in an initial venture financing round in 2018. The full article is available here