What if the clothes you wear were dyed by bacteria? Or if the apartment you live in was designed around protein as building blocks?
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Copy-Paste Nature: Promises and Limits of Biomimicry
Join materials scientist Peter Fratzl, historian Pamela H. Smith, and designer Natsai Audrey Chieza for a conversation exploring how scientists and craftspeople are learning from nature to rethink how we make things in a world facing climate crisis and limited resources.
Spanning topics from artisanal knowledge and craft traditions to biomimicry and bio-based engineering, this event foregrounds how making and knowing intersect in shaping materials of the past and future. By looking to both past knowledge and emerging bio-based technologies, the speakers trace how biomimicry has shifted from copying natural forms to understanding living processes. Examples include Renaissance manuals for lifecasting animals, modern materials science, and recent use of natural bacterial pigments as alternatives to resource-intensive industrial dyes.
Date
05.11.2026, 18:00 to 21:00
Organizers
• Rand El Zein
• Dagmar Schäfer
• Marianna Szczygielska
Address
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jägerstraße 22-23, 10117 Berlin
Contact and Registration
This event is open to all, including academics, students, policymakers, practitioners, artists, and members of the public. Anyone interested in, affected by, or connected to the topic is warmly invited to attend, listen, and join the conversation.
(Language: English)
Dates
November 2026
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