#Kombucha by-product used to create leather for traditional shadow puppet exhibit

People either really love or really hate kombucha, depending on how you feel about its unusual tart taste. One of the by-products of the industry is SCOBY or symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, which is actually the starter culture that brews this fermented drink. But the material can also be used to make other things and these designers had a pretty interesting way of using this biomaterial for another context.

Designers: Nishtha Luhadia, Aditi Shinde

Luminous Lore is an installation that shows off Tholu Bommalata, a shadow puppet theatre tradition of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. But instead of the usual materials used to create the puppets, normally goat, deer, or buffalo hide, it uses leather made from fermenting tea, sugar, water, vinegar, and of course SCOBY.

The leather forms a large Tholu Bommalata inspired lamp and the play of light on the surface helps tell the story and the audience is engaged on a sensory level. The hand-painted illustrations on the lamp also tells the story of how the SCOBY leather came to be. This is not just something you watch though as the audience is invited to touch and feel it.

The designers hope that the success and interest in the exhibit could pave the way for more biomaterials to be used in other projects and products in the industrial design world. With the way that this biomaterial can be grown in any size and shape just by adding some other ingredients, the future is bright.