(Re)imagining human-yeasts relations via art-science collaboration

More-than-human beings are largely de-animated in Western cultures and perceived of as the backdrop for human activities. In particular, with modern modes of production and consumption, customers often have no idea how specific products have been created and which more-than-human beings have been involved in manufacturing specific consumables. As a partial response to this problematic disconnect, this text presents the art book, Yeasts as We Do Not Know Them, as a means to learn about human-yeast interactions and the ways these fungal microbes are used to manufacture different products and substances. The book, therefore, (re)imagines yeasts as omnipresent, diverse, and symbiotic. Conceiving of symbiosis as a set of interspecies relations, including mutualistic, pathogenic, and commensal ones, the project, Yeasts as We Do Not Know Them, as this article argues, maps diverse interspecies interactions and, by doing so, provides recourse for navigating material systems, thereby invoking trans-corporeal ethics.