Julia Lohmann is a designer, researcher and educator, who investigates and critiques the ethical and material value systems underpinning our relationship with nature. She is a Professor of Contemporary Design Practices at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland. Julia is passionate about eco-literacy and ocean protection. In 2013, she founded the Department of Seaweed, a transdisciplinary community of practice exploring the sustainable development of seaweed as a material for making. Julia Lohmann believes that any exploration of biomaterials needs to be based on amplifying their regenerative eco-systemic impact. In her practice and teaching she promotes an empathic, more than human-centric mindset and views design as a way of connecting knowing, caring and acting across disciplines and different levels of complexity. Julia is contributing to research consortia relating to design, biomaterials, science and ecology. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art and her work is part of major public and private collections worldwide.

Violaine Buet is qualified in Humanities; the Science of Education and Sign Language. On obtaining a diploma in industrial design at ENSCI (Paris), she spent 7 years in South India. As her passion for textile design developed, she studied the block print technique and enjoyed a two-year collaboration in a traditional, local workshop where innovatively she alternated between the hierarchical roles of apprentice and artistic director. Her close-knit relationship with artisans has confirmed her certitude that the beauty of each design or material is intrinsically tied to the harmony which unites every hand involved in the creative process. On her return, Violaine spent one year doing a continual assessment course on textiles and materials (ENSAD), where she began her intensive research on seaweed.

In September 2016 she set up her studio in Bretagne for the creative research and development of macro-algae where she manufactures tailored made seaweed textiles (haute-couture, trends, cinema, scenography). “At the threshold of design, craft and research, I am developing, accompanied by a precious network, a multidisciplinary know-how; a dialogue between macro-algae and textile techniques, between nature and manufacture. The identity of these promising, biodegradable materials -magnificent kelp- raise a series of questions and reflections about our relationship to nature, and about our hopes and expectations from materials and objects. This eye-opening concept of reconciling to the impermanent rhythm of living beings invites us to draw on new ways of conceiving our relationship to our milieu and question where and when the action of our hands can re-align to our thoughts.”