“This project was produced during an artist residency with Loomia in 2020.
Fermentation Quilt is a cloth equipped with soft heaters along with thoughtful textile structures that offers a user the chance to think about their personal heritage and cultural context while participating in a daily ritual of making bread, yogurt, or other fermented foods.
Inspired by the traditional Bulgarian yogurt Petars grandmother K (and many great grandmothers before her) made using hand-knit scarves, Fermentation Quilt is both a futuristic object and a mirror for personal narrative and cultural history.
In the wake of pivotal, current movements like Black Lives Matter and Environmental Sustainability when we are all asking, how can I be a more thoughtful neighbor and consumer?, this project weaves together the practical application of Loomia e-textiles with a framework for actively incorporating reflection into our everyday lives. We are inspired by artists and thinkers like Ashley Jane Lewis, Lauren Fournier, Shaina Agbayani, Robin Zabiegalski, and Ursula K. LeGuin along with social movements like the American Suffragettes and others.
Additional Note: If youre curious to learn more about sewing, soldering, electrical circuitry, coding, quilting, e-textiles, or fermentation, we recommend you consult the other incredible resources available in those disciplines online or elsewhere. We will not cover the very basics in this tutorial and instead focus on the steps needed to make this object.
Fermentation Quilt is a collaboration between Victoria Manganiello & Petar Sapundjiev. Victoria Manganiello is an artist and educator working with textiles, technology, performance, and social practice, based in Brooklyn, NY (www.victoriamanganiello.com; @victoriamanganiello). Petar Sapundjiev is an engineer and artist working with electronics and organic materials as expressive media, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. (@petarsapundjiev)
Supplies:
SEWING:
- Iron (with a steamer)
- Sewing Machine
- Scissors
- Seam Ripper
- Sewing Pins
- Sewing Thread
- Hand Sewing Needle
- Ironable Interfacing
- Fabric (your choice)
- Sewable velcro
- Copper conductive thread
ELECTRONICS:
- Soldering Iron
- Wire cutters
- Tweezers
- Solder
- Loomia heaters
- LilyPad USB board
- PWM MOSFET Switch
- TMP36 Temperature sensor
- Thin (approx 30 gauge) isolated wire
- Heatshrink
- DC Power plug, female
- 5VDC power adapter (min. 3 Amps)
YOGURT FERMENTATION:
- Whole milk
- Glass Jar
- Stovetop
- Mixing spoon
- Small bowl
- Saucepan”