This article was taken from the October 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Amy Congdon makes jewellery -- but rather than gold or silver, she uses a less conventional material: bacon.
The Haute Bacon range is the latest stage in her Biological Atelier project. The collection -- a necklace, a bracelet and an earpiece -- was made using decellularisation. "The process comes from tissue culture; they use it for regenerative medicine purposes," explains London-based Congdon, 27. "The idea is that you strip an organ of its cells, so you're only left with the architecture -- the extracellular matrix, things like collagen and elastin."
The bacon ("we went to Tesco") was immersed in a five per cent solution of sodium dodecyl sulfate and water for four days, stripping the meat of its tissue. The resulting material is "fairly strong, but you have to be careful working with such thin pieces," says Congdon. She then applied tanning, dyes and pearl embellishments.
Congdon developed the idea while studying for a master's in material futures at London's Central Saint Martins. After honing her lab skills during a residency at the University of Western Australia's SymbioticA lab, she is now working with the tissue-engineering department at King's College London to research hybrid materials. The aim: "to grow cells around a [fabric] scaffold."
Haute Bacon will go on display in September as part of the London Design Festival. "Jewellery that you graft on to your skin is some way off," she laughs. "But this is about communicating
what can be opened up when designers and scientists work together."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
