Bacteria are often considered ugly and stinky; something dangerous that wants to get on us, and that we need to protect ourselves from. Fermentation is one way to overcome that prejudice and find pleasure and beauty in what many people fear, misunderstand, or even loathe. Another way is art, which can utilize microorganisms as metaphors and aesthetic experiences. But, do things need to be pretty so they can talk to us? In this episode of Ferment Radio,  we go on a journey through the...

We choose our tools, and in return, our tools shape us. Tools can be an opening to new possibilities, but also a limitation. What makes the workspace of a fermenter? What tools are there available? How do these tools influence the process? In this episode, we sneak peek into the kitchen of David Zilber, chef, fermenter, food scientist, and author of The Noma Guide to Fermentation. Guided by David’s voice, and powered by imagination, we stroll around his lab at Chr. Hansen in Hørsholm,...

It looks like a square, monochromatic, glass slide photo, and not only because of the material it is made of, but also because it could belong to a different time. It feels as if the face that emerges from there and gazes at you must have posed for a very long time for the exposure to do its job. Only if you could stare at it uninterruptedly for days, or years, would you be able to notice that the image is in constant change. It is alive. It comes from nowhere, and disappears into what comes...

She asks the plants for permission before foraging them. She sings to her fermentation jars. She prepares funerals for her kombucha scobies. She gives names to her ferments. She observes the moon cycles. She’s a witch. But what does it mean to be a witch today? I asked this to Paulina Gretkierewicz, a forager, a fermenter, and a witch. She transforms seasons and landscapes around Copenhagen, Denmark into edible and drinkable experiences. She calls this “Applied Poetry”, which is also the...

Have you ever heard of slime mold? These organisms might not have a nervous system or even a brain, but they have impressive problem-solving abilities. Slime mold can navigate through mazes and find the most efficient routes to find food. Some researchers have already been inspired by them to design more efficient transportation networks, urban planning, and solving optimizational problems. However, they are shrouded in a haze of mystery. They are hard to like, observe, and classify. In...

A healthy food system encourages the production and consumption of foods that support a balanced gut microbiome. It reduces food waste and gives preference to natural preservation methods. It uplifts food, not only for its nutritional value but also as cultural heritage and an expression of diversity. It is also mindful of the energy spent in order to process food. All these characteristics of a healthy food system sound very much like the definition of fermented foods. It may seem like a...

Garden. It invites us to sit down and watch things grow. It makes us work with gazillions of other species to make them flourish. Silent observation or site-specific, mindful labor can be a form of wondering: seeing magic in what’s common and perceiving what’s repetitive with new eyes. This is how Noora Sandgren, a visual artist and art educator from Finland, works in her family garden. She collaborates with climates, insects, and expired light-sensitive material to create cameraless...

We associate these institutions with petrified displays, and long-gone worlds that are alien to our own experience: museums. Whether we like it or not, they play a crucial role in preserving heritage. Can heritage be something alive and ever changing? It seems that yes. At least ARTIS-Micropia, a one-of-a-kind museum showing the invisible world of micro-organisms, is doing that. ARTIS-Micropia is a museum in Amsterdam in which visitors can learn more information about microbes, and see live...

Can we intentionally influence our nervous system through what we do? If so, could we also activate the main nerve of our parasympathetic nervous system known as vagus nerve?  This is the central communication pathway between the gut and the brain, and between microbiota and our nervous system. Could we interact with our gut microbiota and our gut microbiota interact with us? In this episode of Ferment Radio, together with Riina Hannula, we start with Microbial Medi(t)ation, an instructional...

We communicate with the outside world based on the information we receive through our senses. But just like fingerprints, no two people have the same brain anatomy, and therefore, no two people can sense the world identically. We can’t experience how other bodies feel, but we can attempt to describe it. Today, together with Pia Lindman, an artist and researcher working with performance art, healing-as-art, installation, microbes, architecture, painting, and sculpture, we dive into the...

The notion of “animal rights”, meaning that we recognize their universal, intrinsic rights, regardless if some animals are more useful for humans or not, is being talked about more and more these days. However, we can’t fully understand the lives of animals, and as result, we can’t understand our own lives without microbes and our relationship with them. Our lives depend on them. In other words, we belong to them. This episode revolves around speculative microbial perspectives in the work of...

Through language, we not only reflect our relationship with the world but also shape it. For example, what does the conviction that we need to “exterminate all superbugs” tell us about humans? Could it be that antimicrobial resistance, which causes antibiotics to become ineffective against microbial infections, is in part driven by a human desire to separate human from nature and eradicate what is ‘impure’, different, or misunderstood? On the 30th episode of Ferment Radio, together with Iona...

On Ferment Radio, we have often talked about how artists use technology and science in order to tackle the microbial world. Do you remember the episode “Play that fungi music!” with Tosca Terán? Or “Interspecies collaborations” with Mindaugas Gapševičius? Some people refer to this kind of practice as “bioart”: the happy place where experimentation and process are more important than concrete results. Our guest today is Laura Beloff, an artist, and researcher working at the intersection of...

For centuries, fermention has had an important role in the evolution of agriculture. But the idea that fermentation can be treated as a paradigm for understanding place-based change is one steap ahead. The 28th episode of Ferment Radio explores how land use and management is related to the production and consumption of fermented beverages —a research area Colleen C. Myles calls “fermented landscapes.” That term functions as a metaphor for understanding landscape transformation and the...

We use them all the time. Metaphors allow us to make sense of things we cannot comprehend. What metaphors do we commonly use to understand microbes? Bacteria are bugs, and we certainly are at war with them. Such a stand contributes greatly to our antagonistic relationship with microbes. But, can we revalue our relationship with microbes through metaphors? Could metaphors help us reconsider habits and economies related to our co-existing with bacteria, particularly something as serious as...

In 2015, while in grad school, Cecilia Westbrook made yogurt out of her vaginal flora, as an experimental side-project. A journalist friend of hers wrote about it, and the article got published on Vice. It immediately went viral, spawning a number of copy-cat publications that re-edited the original text but never added more content, let alone created space for dialogue or reflection. This situation caused problems with her academic institution, since at the moment she was undergoing PhD...

Last year, an article titled "Lost in the Brine!” was published on the Eater. The author, Miin Chan, aka Dr Chan, says what most people don’t want to admit: while the fermented foods industry evangelizes products rooted in global, often East Asian, traditions, its most visible faces are predominantly white. As a white host of a fermentation-related podcast myself, whose guests, so far, are predominantly white, I had felt the urge to comment on that issue already for a while. Reading this...

Vaginal flora consists largely of Lactobacillus. This particular type of bacteria can affect everything, from developing certain diseases to fighting infections, and from getting pregnant to having a miscarriage. If the vaginal microbiome is imbalanced, there’s a risk for developing vaginosis, a type of vaginal inflammation. Some sources say that 75% of people with a vagina will experience vaginosis at least once in their lifetime. Moreover, people from more disadvantaged groups are more...

Food is something quite peculiar. On the one hand, it is very intimate: we put it in our mouths, it nourishes our bodies, and  we share it with the people we love. On the other hand, big corporations capitalize from it, turning it into a global political product.  Njathi Kabui, a Kenyan-born, US-based organic chef is committed to raising awareness around food, and therefore restoring broken relationships with the land, with one another, and with ourselves. He is also an anthropologist, urban...

Missionaries and explorers who arrived in the Americas in the 17th century interpreted what they encountered through their own viewpoint and interests. In this way, local shamanism was mostly understood in reference to spirits and souls; concepts that were present at that time in medieval Europe. But what would happen if we attempted to comprehend shamanism differently? The work of César Enrique Giraldo Herrera, a biologist, anthropologist and a PhD in Social Anthropology, questions our views...

Did blue-green algae bloom ever make you hesitate to take a dip in the sea during a hot summer day?  It is common to hear that these algae produce toxins that can be harmful for humans and animals. But, do we know why they actually bloom? What kind of ecological impact do they imply?  In our conversation with Mari Granström, co-founder of Origin by Ocean, we talk about the mysteries of blue-green algae and the possibilities of turning a global problem into a sustainable solution.

In this episode, we celebrate one year of Ferment Radio by listening to mushrooms. We all know what their fruiting bodies look like and how some of them taste. But we might have no idea how they sound, especially when it comes to the part of the mushroom that is invisible to our eyes.  How can we listen to things we cannot see? This is one of the questions we ask Tosca Terán in this episode of Ferment Radio. Tosca is an interdisciplinary, ecofeminist, human holobiont whose work is located...

We need new words and concepts to explain the complexity of the world. Metaphors have the potential to be a productive tool to motivate social and political change. Could metaphors contribute to creating reality rather than just explain it? What about using the human body and its microbial life as a metaphor for interconnectivity and global relations?  In this episode of Ferment Radio, we talk about these issues with Stefanie Fishel. She’s a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at...

Food production is one of the major drivers of global environmental change. Spirulina, a kind of cyanobacteria, has a big chance to benefit the environment by requiring less land and water to produce the same amount of protein and energy as livestock. You might know it as a popular superfood supplement that comes in green, blueish pills, or powder.  But, aside from that, what is actually spirulina? In this episode, together with Anya Muangkote, a multidisciplinary designer and design...