A woman with a headscarf faces the camera with hands either side of her head, fingers splayed.

Yuning Chen

Yuning Chen is a biodesigner and PhD researcher looking into the ethics and morality of the more-than-humans involved in biodesign and the wider bioproduction system.

With a background in environmental science and design engineering, Yuning adopts a practice-based mode of inquiry to explore multispecies ethical questions and moral deliberations through experiments in the living. Inspired by pragmatist ethics, daoism and ecofeminism, her recent works concern topics such as ambivalent care in biodesign, bioart activism, and more-than-human labour.

As an active practitioner in sci-art and biodesign, her works have been exhibited and recognised internationally, such as Falling Walls Science Festival, ST+ARTS Festivals, Bozar Fine Art Centre, London Design Festival, and Milan Design Week.

Website: www.alienyuning.com  

Instagram: @alienyuning

An outstretched hand. White patches that hold lichen and moss are attached to the wrist.
‘No species is an island.’ Project Habitate (2021): A biomimetic living wearable that allows humans to become the host of endangered lichens and mosses, protecting them from secondary extinction due to ash dieback. Collaborator: Tom Hartley, Yishan Qin
On the left: yellow lichen on tree bark To the right: white patches with lichen attached.
Project Habitate: Close up shot of lichen on ash tree bark and lichen on Habitate Materials.
A man in a dark hat touches a blue sensor to his tongue.
Plant Reality Set (2021): A wearable set that takes you on a tour of the plant sensorial world, where you can feel and respond to the touch of the wind, the taste of the light and the acoustics to the underground water. Pic: light taste generator that translates different spectrums of light sensed by hand wearables into different tastes based on their contribution to photosynthetic rates. Collaborators: Lamp Lee, Prof Naomi Nakayama
A man in a dance pose, with four pale patches on his body
Plant Reality Set: Skin wearables that translate the signal flow in a plant initiated by a touch of the breeze. You can move your body to be in sync with the wind.
An image of blue patterns against white: these are wearable nodes that you attach to your body.
Plant Reality Set: Wearable roots to sense the underground moisture like a plant. You can explore the change of acoustics by moving your feet positions in relation to the soil.

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