the wearable garden vest grows crops nourished by your own waste

speculative designer aroussiak gabrielian has created a wearable garden vest that grows crops nourished by bodily waste. the microhabitat allows the urban dweller to live off-the-grid, providing immediate access to ‘landscape’ and sources of food.

images courtesy of aroussiak gabrielian

the project, which is called ‘posthuman habitats‘, is now on view in beijing as part of human (un)limited, a joint exhibition by hyundai motorstudio and ars electronica. it focuses on reconnecting the food producer and consumer to develop more self-reliant and resilient food networks.

in the future, severe drought and diminished soil quality from industrialized farming, as well as sea-level rise and climate events will force us to think harder about the future of food production. this speculative design project responds to these stresses with a solution that imagines a nomadic existence, characterized by our age of migration, proposing a wearable landscape system as a potential solution to crop scarcity.

‘it explores the blurred distinctions between nature-culture, human-machine, and celebrates hybrid ecologies and synthetic forms of nature that are representative of our technologically mediated experience,’ a description of the project reads. ‘in particular, it comments on the complete end to romantic notions of ‘nature’ and recognizes that even our bodies have become part of this deliberately engineered existence.’

the vest works like a ‘cloak of plant life’, intended to provide sustenance to the wearer, as well as flourish as expanding ecosystems that attract and integrate other animal and insect life. the garment promotes a healthful diet and lifestyle, as the gardens are fed and nourished by bodily wastes, and inspire outdoor exposure to optimize photosynthesis.

‘responding to theories of the posthuman, distinctive subjects, isolatable artifacts and environment are blurred and hybridized,’ it continues. ‘here, bodily systems and plant ecologies are symbiotic and the ‘human’ becomes part of a larger habitational field.’