Michel Blazy’s microbial art

The lacto-fermentation of cabbage wasn’t the only kind of microbial art and design going down in St. Etienne at last month’s biennial. Michel Blazy created a most beautiful live installation of Givernyesque pools of living kombucha colonies. For those not yet in the know, kombucha is a fermented tea, that folks east of Caucasus can’t get enough of. It’s made with a fungus that imparts such special health-giving properties that kombucha enthusiasts call it the ‘elixir of life’. Kombucha is a slightly soured, bubbly, probiotic drink.