48 Hours
Year:
Duration:
Location:
Materials:
2024
48 hours
Brooklyn, NY
Sembiotic culture of bacteria
and yeast
& chicken wire.
The 48 Hours lamp reimagines SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) as a biomaterial, transforming it into a sustainable, light-diffusing lamp. Originally formed during kombucha fermentation, SCOBY develops a leathery, translucent texture when dried, revealing organic patterns that interact beautifully with light. By manifesting its natural adaptability and biodegradability, the design offers a living, evolving alternative that merges science, nature, and a home into a single luminous form.
Everything in the natural world evolves and changes over time; this piece was designed to evolve and eventually disappear. I aimed to embrace the impermanence of the lamp and its circular process of growth, decay, and rebirth.
Black teaPure cane sugar4 Week old SCOBY7 Week old SCOBY13 Week old SCOBY
Industrialization brought with it a desire for permanence: materials designed not to age, objects made to resist decay. Over time, we’ve come to treat even synthetic substances as if they were part of a natural cycle, letting plastics die and be replaced as if they could regenerate like living matter. The 48 Hours Lamp contrasts the reality of natural impermanence with the false sense of continuity embedded in modern consumption. It reveals how our habits are shaped by a quiet ritual of discarding without question. The lamp does not pretend to last. It resists preservation. And when its light fades, it leaves behind no harm, but the imprint of a more conscious way of making.