Fermenting Futures

Modified yeast sits inside a sculptural vessel in this bioart installation, asking how biotechnology might be redirected towards less destructive futures.

Fermenting Futures installed at Kunstlerhaus Wien with a glass vessel, tubing, and wall text.
Installation view at Kunstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, 2022.

Alex May developed Fermenting Futures with Anna Dumitriu as the central sculpture within their wider project of the same name. The work physically contains genetically modified yeast inside a glass vessel threaded with tubes and surrounded by 3D printed forms, using biotechnology not as spectacle but as a way to think through carbon capture, plastic production, and the material consequences of climate change. It brings together research on modified Pichia pastoris and Saccharomyces cerevisiae to ask how living systems might be redirected towards less destructive futures.

Fermentation gives the project a different route into questions that run through May’s practice. Instead of digital files or recorded images, the work deals in living transformation: containment, growth, metabolic change, and environmental consequence. It opens a space where storage becomes biological, and where the line between laboratory process and public imagination remains deliberately unsettled.

Additional notes

  • Fermenting Futures was created with Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with Professor Diethard Mattanovich, Professor Michael Sauer, Dr Ozge Ata, and Dr Martin Altvater at the Institute of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna.
  • The work premiered online at the 15th International Congress on Yeasts in August 2021, ahead of its major physical presentations in 2022.
  • It was first shown as part of the Fermenting Futures exhibition at Kunstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, in March 2022.
  • Subsequent exhibitions have included Wunderkammer BioArt at Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, BioArt Alchemy at Spazju Kreattiv, Renaissance 3.0 at ZKM, Fungi: In Art and Science at the Nobel Prize Museum, Touch Nature at SAC @ Berthelot and the Lentos Museum of Art, INVISIBLES at Musee De La Main, and Fungi - Intertwined Worlds at Museum Sinclair-Haus.
  • Fermenting Futures was a winner in the 2021 Falling Walls Art and Science category.
  • The project team co-authored the paper Fermenting Futures: an artistic view on yeast biotechnology for FEMS Yeast Research.

Talks, exhibitions, and updates connected to this work.

  • Touch Nature at Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

    Fermenting Futures is on view at Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz as part of Touch Nature, a group exhibition on art, ecology, and changing relationships between humanity and the natural world.

  • Renaissance 3.0

    Fermenting Futures was shown at ZKM in Karlsruhe as part of Renaissance 3.0, a major exhibition on new relationships between art and science.

  • Wunderkammer BioArt at Kunsthaus Wiesbaden

    Fermenting Futures and Biotechnology from the Blue Flower were presented at Kunsthaus Wiesbaden in an exhibition exploring bioart through fermentation, genetics, and material transformation.

  • Fermenting Futures exhibition at Kunstlerhaus Vienna

    Fermenting Futures was presented at Kunstlerhaus Wien in Vienna, bringing Alex May and Anna Dumitriu's yeast biotechnology project into a public exhibition setting.

  • Ars Electronica 2020: Alex May artworks and videos

    Alex May presented multiple projects in Ars Electronica 2020, including Quarantine, Fermenting Futures, and Acquired Immunity, across the online and distributed Kepler's Gardens programme.

Selected images

Fermenting Futures installed in Renaissance 3.0 at ZKM in Karlsruhe.
Installation view in Renaissance 3.0 at ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2023-24.
Fermenting Futures shown with related works in Fungi: In Art and Science at the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm.
Fermenting Futures, Culture, and The BioArchaeology of Yeast in Fungi: In Art and Science at the Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm, 2023-24.
Fermenting Futures shown with related works in INVISIBLES at Musee De La Main in Lausanne.
Fermenting Futures, Culture, and The BioArchaeology of Yeast in INVISIBLES. La vie cachee des microbes at Musee De La Main, Lausanne, from 2024.
Fermenting Futures installation view at Museum Sinclair-Haus in Bad Homburg.
Installation view in Fungi - Intertwined Worlds at Museum Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg, 2024-25. Photo credit Museum Sinclair-Haus / Anja Jahn.
Fermenting Futures installation view in Touch Nature at SAC @ Berthelot in Bucharest.
Installation view in Touch Nature at SAC @ Berthelot, Bucharest, 2024. Photo credit Natalia Marin.
Fermenting Futures series installation view in BioArt Alchemy at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta.
Fermenting Futures series installation view in BioArt Alchemy at Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta, 2022.