Meet Catherine Euale

Catherine Euale is a Venezuelan- Canadian multimedia bio-artist, citizen scientist, community enthusiast and storyteller with a background in film and fashion.  Her work centers around deepening our relationships with the more than human worlds.  In her practice, she challenges the need to use materials and methods that are non-compatible with living systems.

In the lead-up to her upcoming online course, Speculative Biophilia, we asked Catherine a few questions to gain more insight into who she is and what she cares about. 

Speculative biophilia sounds like a fascinating topic. How did you come up with this topic and what about it are you especially interested to explore?

Speculative Biophilia was a course idea that stemmed from wanting to teach designers, artists, makers and writers about my philosophy, processes and practices in design and storytelling. My process is very much based on speculation of future potentials that involve more living, organic objects and built environments. These are not only constructed from natural materials, but they might also incorporate biological features. For example we can think of something like an algae facade that could feed from the sun, produce oxygen, and improve indoor air quality - benefiting those living in the house but also the environment. It might even become a food source when harvested. The idea is to understand how we can incorporate living systems into our existing structures.

This approach is collaborative, requiring observation, adaptability, and caring from the human side towards the non-human and vice-versa. My work focuses on creating new relationships and ways of communicating with non-human organisms. Not necessarily through our human language, but through shared languages like chemistry, touch and vibration, like sound.

This perspective is deeply rooted in the concept of biophilia - an innate love for all living things. Biophilia is the hypothesis that we humans are naturally drawn to living aesthetics. This doesn't mean we don't appreciate minerals, crystals, and other entities considered non-living. But there's an undeniable connection with the pulse of life. Despite not experiencing it daily in our constructed spaces, the goal of using this concept in design is to explore how encounters with non-human organisms through textures, sounds, sights, and tastes can shape our future in a way that's more conscious of life and more caring for our planet, its biodiversity, and our fellow human relatives.

The question then becomes: how can we rethink the design of everyday items? For instance, would we consider objects like our phones less disposable if they had textures like scales or little hairs? Or if our household devices resembled living organisms, whether real or imagined? Challenging the current norms of manufactured and programmed obsolescence by cultivating deeper relationships with our devices is speculative, but it's an intriguing aspect of the psychology of materials and design that we will explore together in this course.

Can you tell us a little about your background and how got to this level of knowing? How have your interests, and in turn, your education guided you?

I studied fashion design and fine arts in my early twenties but didn't complete either program. Financial constraints were a part of the decision, but mainly I became disillusioned with the fashion and textile industries in Canada. It felt like the education was steering us towards fast fashion manufacturing and creativity didn’t seem to align with the industry's actual model for success. Though I would say this is where I became fascinated by textile science and color and started experimenting with natural dyes - my “gateway drug” to biology.

I had an opportunity to jump right into the workforce working in art direction and costume design for the film industry in Toronto, where I worked for a decade. At the same time, I started upcycling vintage clothes and launched a small artisan brand, making jewelry as a silversmith which I studied in the evenings for some years at a jewelry studio in Toronto. I did this for a few years but eventually realized I didn’t want to be a brand, which was an important realization.

At this time in my early twenties also my interest in the esoteric, such as yoga philosophy,
tantra, magical teachings and other mystery schools started to grow. It fueled my desire to move beyond working in creating the often-numbing programming in films and tv shows that, to me, didn’t expand human potential.

I made my own herbal remedies and tinctures, living a rather "hippy" life. Yet, my work often required 16 hour shifts on set, contributing to an industry that wasn’t (and isn’t) concerned with human health and wellbeing nor in any way environmentally aware either.

I was keen to explore textile science and creating new biomaterials that could be used in my own practice or that I could advocate for in costuming for the film industry. Eventually, I found the Fabric Academy in Spain in 2018, part of the global decentralized Fab Lab network. My focus was on developing non-plastic alternatives to materials like leather.

Because of my film and mystic background, I found new philosophies and stories in the textures and colors of the materials I was investigating. The essence of my work delved into rituals, viewing creation as a sacred process, and building relationships with living organisms. This took me on a journey of understanding and collaborating with biological organisms and materials as ancestors and as relatives. I experimented a lot with beings like mycelium, spirulina, algae, scobies, bacteria and natural dyes. Being a bit nomadic since then has further shaped my perspective, always emphasizing the importance of understanding and integrating local contexts.

I’ve also incorporated electronics into my work, creating devices that interpret living data from organisms, translating it into sound or visuals. This idea of immersing oneself in another being’s reality is influenced by yoga principles, understanding what it’s like to step out of the attachment of the bounds of the human experience and into the lives of other energies and entities.

Biology, especially the work of theorists like Lyn Margulis, fascinates me. The Gaia theory and symbiogenesis influence a lot of the language I use in my work. They challenge traditional evolutionary concepts, emphasizing collaboration over competition in the formation of new life forms.

My learning journey has also been shaped by various independent citizen science spaces. I've studied with makerspaces, artist residencies and DIY wetlabs like the School of Machines, GenSpace, Arquetopia in Peru, OCAD, InterAccess Toronto, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and the Design Futures Initiative. Mentoring for the BioDesign Challenge has also been a rewarding experience. The cycle of learning, implementing, and teaching in diverse communities, especially with those from different cultures and disciplines,and being a part of such an imaginative experimental community has been super nourishing and rewarding.

How do you view the connections between humans and nature and why do connections matter?

I use the word "nature" in my everyday life because it's ingrained in me and normalized. However, I think this term creates a distinction, implying that humans are not part of nature. This language creates a psychological separation that comes from a mechanistic model we've been indoctrinated into since the industrial revolution.

I prefer describing this relationship as the relationship between humans and non-human organisms (rather than nature). And this relationship is really entangled on so many levels. For example we are, within ourselves, largely made up of bacteria. In fact, our bacterial genes outnumber our human or animal genes. Recognizing this makes us understand that we have evolved from numerous mergers with other life forms, tracing back to bacteria. These bacteria are our oldest ancestors, they are responsible for creating earth’s atmosphere, temperature, and the evolution of plants, fungi, and other organisms that allow us to exist and thrive on this
planet.

Understanding that we can only thrive within this integrated system is very humbling. It sparks for me a reimagining of the kingdoms of life as the kin-doms of life (as in non-human kinship). We are all interconnected. When I introduce myself, for instance, I can't only talk about my individual identity. I'm also defined by my relationships with my family, my community, and even the trees on my street or the flowers in my home, the microbiome in my gut and my mouth, the smell I emit because of my body's specific bacterial cocktail. In my case, even the mushrooms I grow. We are more of a collective than just individual entities.

Personally, I incorporate spiritual practices, rituals and communal ceremonies into my life. Through these practices, I connect with various animal guides, plant guides, and spirit guides. These non-human entities provide different energies and wisdom that I can tap into and embody.

I believe that as humans, we need to be more engaged with the non-human world. For instance, bacteria have existed since the beginning of life, thriving through millenia and very harsh environments and eras. On the other hand, us humans currently are facing lots of challenges in sustaining ourselves harmoniously with our environment. There's deep ancient wisdom in organisms that have persisted for millennia, those that create ecosystems instead of merely inhabiting and polluting them. We should serve and learn from these non-human organisms, drawing inspiration from their resilience and adaptability.

I think that just as we ask our grandparents for stories about their times, their aspirations, challenges, and relationships, we should also seek to understand the stories of these ancient ancestors. Exploring and speculating about these stories can be a sometimes mind-blowing and humbling exercise - some non-human organisms have WILD personalities, aesthetics and processes.

How difficult is it for newcomers to explore these topics? Are there things one can read, learn, or do to prepare themselves for taking part?

This field is very interdisciplinary and not particularly linear. If you look at my trajectory into this field, it has been very nonlinear. I transitioned from fashion design to working in more biological realms, tinkering with DIY machines, electronics, and alchemizing into this practice many other experimental processes.

For newcomers I think it’s important to emphasize the need to be open-minded. Not every experiment or project will go as planned. Working in biology or with experimental processes requires patience and the understanding that timelines might differ from typical expectations. I encourage folks to embrace the process of experimentation, and remember that design, documentation and making adjustments according to new observations can be time-consuming. The relationship between time and design needs to shift in this context.

As far as resources, many books have influenced my thinking. Books by Lynn Margulis, like "Symbiotic Planet," and Donna Haraway's work are great starting points. Haraway's "Staying with the Trouble" and the "Cyborg Manifesto" are particularly interesting. Rupert Sheldrake has also deeply influenced my thinking about fields and forces of evolution in form.

In thinking of relationships to non-humans and bioethics I have been influenced by many eco-feminist works and also understanding the parallels between the treatment of non-human organisms and marginalized communities.

Science fiction is another continual source of inspiration for me. I love films by David Kronenberg that have a unique organic-tech aesthetic, think of game controllers that look like umbilical cords and plug into your spine! And for more practices in speculative design, the Buckminster Fuller Institute is a resource for people who want to expand on practices that allow them to speculate about probable futures.

For more practical guides and resources, there are many places to learn DIY or open-source techniques for creating biomaterials. Books like "Radical Matter" and "Why Materials Matter”, and there are online repositories like the Bioplastics Cookbook, Recipes for Material Activism and Materiom. I've also studied here in Mexico with curator Edith Medina at Biology Studio for anyone looking for Spanish literature and learning spaces.

For learning about more organisms "Slime" is a great reference for algae. And as far as mushrooms and mycology, there are so many books available these days. An easy and engaging book recommendation is "Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake or “The Little Book of Mushrooms” by Alex Dorr. A fun resource online is asknature.org - this online source has a lot of insight into organisms, the ways that they build, teach, learn, harness energy, which can all serve as inspiration for creating more nature-aligned designs and solutions.

Also, in collaboration with Jessica Diaz, I'm releasing a digital course for working with mycelium materials. We are also publishing a detailed guidebook with step-by-step guides to our experiments and digital fabrication techniques.

For anyone new to this area or taking related courses, I'd recommend checking out open-source projects on GitHub, FabLab repository, and the Fabricademy. All makers and alumni of these spaces provide in depth documentation of their processes in materials, electronics and digital fabrication.

You mentioned you have been exploring psychedelic therapy techniques, how does that add to your body of knowledge and your desire to work with and help others?

About a year and a half ago, I began to study with Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines focusing on the indigenous roots and uses of many sacred plants, fungi, and other organisms. Just recently I finished my studies in PAT with the Beckley Institute, which is more focused on understanding the therapeutic aspects, clinical trials, and relational therapies.

One personal motivation for this journey is that I've been using psychedelics since my teenage years. I've always been intrigued by expanded states, leading me to also want to learn more about the nature of consciousness, collective consciousness and of course the cognitive and collective fields of non-human organisms. Especially decentralized organisms without a centralized nervous system or brain who communicate through electrical or chemical signals across time and space is incredibly interesting for me. So this is how I see all of these fields of interest converging.

When we look at our ancestral relationship to psychedelic and sacred plants and fungal allies, we recognize the ancient wisdom of these organisms. Non-human organisms have accumulated so much genetic information through time and adaptation, we have a lot to learn from them. Ancestral practices of communing with these sacred organisms, means treating them as guides or teachers. We're reminded to approach them with reverence and gratitude. There are plant concoctions and teachers, like tobacco, ayahuasca brews, and certain mushroom species that interact with our bodies and allow us to be receptive to information we generally filter out. In an ordinary state of consciousness, we don’t process all the information we receive; it would be too much for our human bodies. But in certain expanded states of consciousness, achieved by communing with these plants and fungi, we can alter or remove these filters and process different information.

More than just about psychedelics, this exploration ties in with practices like mindfulness, yoga, and breathing. They all revolve around observation and feeling, activating different receptors in our bodies. Just as there are altered states achieved through rhythmic trances, body movements, the resonance of gongs, hyperventilation, or hours of chanting—like in Sufi traditions—or even through sensory deprivation tanks, there are so many worlds that exist at once outside of our default modes of thinking. These practices can also open us up to the vast planetary memories we all possess. For many people, psychedelics offer a quicker route to access this information than meditation or communal chanting, which can be practices that make these states harder to achieve but aren’t as elusive or are sustained for longer periods of time.

For me all of these expanded states involve slowing down, taking a deep breath, and noticing our bodies, our tissues, our spaces, other critters that are around, and the breath of life.

Thank you, Catherine, for this thoughtful interview. <3

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To learn more about Catherine’s work, visit her on instagram here.

For more information on Speculative Biophilia, her 5-week online class beginning 25. September at School of Machines in Berlin, click here.