Eating out of the petri dish: Vik Muniz and Tal Danino;s bacterial tableware for Bernardaud

Inspired by bacteria, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and MIT postdoctoral fellow Tal Danino have teamed up to create the Petri Collection for luxury porcelain brand Bernardaud. Pictured here is Danino's favourite, the culprit of food poisoning: 'Diffuse Salmonella'

(Image credit: press)

By Stephanie Murg

last updated 11 October 2022

in News

'The specks remind me of stars in the galaxy,' says Tal Danino, admiring a dinner plate dotted with what appear to be celestial bodies. 'This really interesting pattern in the centre, that's Salmonella!' Danino is a biological engineer who has collaborated with Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and luxury porcelain brand Bernardaud to take a group of photogenic bacterial species from agar to porcelain.

The project began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Danino is a postdoctoral fellow researching ways to program bacteria for different uses, such as detecting and treating cancer. 'At MIT they have amazing toys to play with our ideas of how we perceive the world,' says Muniz, who completed a residency at the university in 2013.

Muniz proposed the concept of 'drawing with little bugs' to Danino and soon the two were creating intricate patterns out of liver cells and cervical cancer cells. 'They look like your grandmother's wallpaper, and then you look closer and you see every nucleus of every cell,' says Muniz, who has previously worked with materials ranging from chocolate and diamonds to rubbish and clouds.

Working with petri dishes, also known as bacterial plates, got Muniz thinking about the real thing. 'Vic said let's make some real plates out of bacteria,' explains Danino. Salmonella was always part of the plan ('perfect for chicken,' notes Muniz), but the stars of the Bernardaud 'petri' collection also include other species, 'mostly bacillus,' adds Danino.

The colourful images that fill the seven porcelain plates began as ten-centimeter-wide petri dishes, each filled with translucent, nutrient-infused agar and dotted with a drop of bacteria in the centre. 'They grow outward, protruding themselves, pushing back their neighbours, eating up the food, and forming these very intricate patterns,' Danino illustrates.

'Sometimes we look at abstraction and all we see are beautiful patterns and colours, but these are abstractions that tell a story,' says Muniz. 'Imagine having a dinner party. Your guests finish their food and admire the image on the plate, and then you tell them it's Salmonella!'

Muniz and Danino started by producing intricate patterns out of liver cells and cervical cancer cells on petri dishes at MIT. Pictured here: 'Chiral Jam'

The natural designs of the bacteria inspired them to create real plates with the photographed bacteria. Pictured here: 'Tepid Tip-Splitters'

The porcelain plates show the bacteria's growth quality, spreading and forming accidental artful patterns. Pictured here: 'Tip-Splitting Morphotype'

Seven plates were manufactured boasting strong beautiful colours. Pictured here: 'Bacteria Chirality'

'Sometimes we look at abstraction and all we see are beautiful patterns and colors, but these are abstractions that tell a story,' says Muniz. Pictured here: Chiral Colony

The full collection is on show during showing during Frieze New York. Pictured here: Soft Splitting Bacteria

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Stephanie Murg is a writer and editor based in New York who has contributed to Wallpaper* since 2011. She is the co-author of Pradasphere (Abrams Books), and her writing about art, architecture, and other forms of material culture has also appeared in publications such as Flash Art, ARTnews, Vogue Italia, Smithsonian, Metropolis, and The Architect’s Newspaper. A graduate of Harvard, Stephanie has lectured on the history of art and design at institutions including New York’s School of Visual Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

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