Meet Jessica Chiang of Biofab
Owl in the Splash of Rainbow, Watercolour on paper by Jessica Chiang.
Jessica Chiang, Chief Scientific Officer at Biofab, is a creative and inventive PhD candidate at University of Auckland. Her work experience centres on the theme of building connections, both social and conceptual.
In her role at Biofab, Jess works to replace the most common packaging pollutants with a product made from mycelium and agricultural waste. That’s right… packaging made from mushrooms.
Aside from that, Jess is also a brilliant artist. Her artwork Owl in the Splash of Rainbow hangs at Manzana. We caught up with her to chat about science and art.
You’re an artist as a hobby and a scientist by trade, do you find any crossover? If not, how would you like to?
Absolutely yes! I am a scientist, so innately, I am drawn to details and patterns and the beauty within. I find patterns created by mother nature the most intriguing. Mother nature has a way to create a form of order or tranquillity in this chaotic world, where entropy is the basis of everything. In my research, I utilise biomimicry to design new technology, which means I take inspiration from nature in my work in science.
Same as my style of drawings/paintings, in which I try my best to capture a glimpse of nature and record as many details of the patterns found in nature and living creatures.
Biofab exists within a great community of other mycelium bio-fabricators and designers. What do you think is this community’s place within the wider environmental movement?
On so many levels, I believe mycelium technology will play a major role in creating a more sustainable future for the planet. Inspired by how mycelium itself can influence its own environment on a localised scale while simultaneously functioning as part of a larger ecosystem, we can mimic the mycelium and use this technology to create both systemic and local impacts all over the planet.
Biofab is a New Zealand company. Being on this island that was separated from the rest of the world millions of years ago, we have unique biodiversity and that is our taonga in NZ. In Biofab, we have an ambition to showcase NZ fungi to the world by fabricating them to packaging materials and more. We want to create new values and definitions of what fungi and agriculture is all about and even establish a whole new industry for NZ to explore.
What challenges do you face in developing your business at the moment?
1. Currently, there is no simple "clean-up & recycle" system that can keep up with the growing demand of consumerism. There is an urgency to replace hard-to-recycle plastic with truly sustainable options. The challenge has not so much been raising awareness of the harm that hard to recycle plastics brings, but more so the potential mycelium technology has to solve these issues.
2. Our goal is to build the first commercial-scale mycelium manufacturing plant in Australasia, and we are committed to building that in NZ! To scale up our operation and replace as many plastic materials as possible, we must successfully raise capital. However, raising capital locally has proven to be extremely difficult to date. I believe that once investors understand that we are much more than just a manufacturing business and that we can solve global issues with endemic and native fungi, they will appreciate the value of BioFab seeding our roots in Aotearoa.
Thank you Jess, your insight is so inspiring!
