MICROBIAL GARDENS

Climate change demonstrates that humanity is not in charge of the planet. Fifty years from now, the effects of global warming will cause irreversible damage to the planet. The habitable area of the world will shrink significantly, forcing 1 to 3 billion people to seek refuge in colder climates, such as Antarctica. Existing infrastructure will become the base for the biotechnological tools and human-microbial interfaces that will support human and microbial life in the extreme setting. To survive the extreme challenges and changes of Anthropocentric ways of making living spaces that currently contribute to 40% of our total carbon emissions, I have looked for a more-than-human solution by forming alliances with the microbes that comprise the base of the biosphere. Fundamentally environmental, microbial “knowledge” can be cultivated within a domestic space within specially designed “homes” or bio-processors, even in the most barren places like Antarctica. I have considered the organisation, spatial sequencing and ending to these life-promoting communities as a form of gardening. By orchestrating the kinds of metabolic transactions within these spaces, I have proposed to form an infrastructure, or ecosystem, to support activities of human life. I call this choreography of space and resources “Microbial Gardening.”