Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

In the Studio

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Inside the brains of the world’s most creative people

In the Studio takes us into the minds and processes of leading and emerging figures from across the creative world.

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service News Internet

In the Studio: Superflex: Design for humans and marine life

Magazines & Reviews

In the Studio:  Superflex

07/01/2020 GMT

Superflex: Design for humans and marine life

BBC World Service - In the Studio, Superflex: Design for humans and marine life

The Danish artists Superflex work on turning bricks of houses into food for fish

Laura Hubber follows the Danish artist group Superflex  as they create materials to make buildings which can be occupied by humans first and then marine life.

What do you get when you put a Danish artist group together with oceanographers, material scientists, and marine biologists?  The answer is an idea which might just change the way we imagine and design our environments in response to rising sea levels.

As warnings about the effects of global warming escalate, Superflex - an art group founded by Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen and Rasmus Nielsen in 1993 – have been working on a long term project  to imagine a world where  the original  function and aesthetics of our carefully designed world may be lost to the tide. 

Commissioned by TBA21-Academy, the project is called  Deep Sea Minding and it considers whether it’s possible to design and create structures that could serve the needs and desires of both humans and marine life. 

So in their headquarters in Copenhagen, the team at Superflex are mixing  concrete and amino acids together to see whether they can create bricks to make houses and schools which can be occupied by humans first and then fish. They’re also preparing a prototype structure to be placed on the seabed to test the responses of fish to this new material.
 
Over the course of nine months Laura Hubber joins Rasmus Nielsen from Superflex for one leg of their epic journey –taking in California, Copenhagen and Jamaica - and meeting a Mermaid along the way. 
 
Presented by Laura Hubber and produced by Emma Kingsley and Ella-mai Robey for BBC World Service. 

Original music from Dive-In  composed by Dark Morph (Jón Þór Birgisson and Carl Michael von Hausswolff)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

In the Studio

Superflex: Design for humans and marine life

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service