Dasha Tsapenko

This lecture delves into what it means to grow with mycelium—not just as a sustainable material, but as a subtle collaborator that reshapes the daily life of a maker. Working at the intersection of fashion, collectible design, and biodesign, Dasha Tsapenko cultivates objects and garments with living fungal cultures.

Through stories from material research, commissions, and collaborative projects, she reflects on how mycelium has taught her patience, humility, and the art of stepping back from control. She also explores how studio experiments ripple into private life, revealing design as a practice of relationship rather than product.

If a material could shape habits, ethics, and ways of relating, what might it ask of its maker? And what might begin to grow when the maker learns to grow alongside the material?

Dasha Tsapenko is the founder of Atelier Dasha Tsapenko, a bio-design studio in The Hague, Netherlands, working at the intersection of art, design, and microbiological material research. Her practice explores living materials, with a focus on mycelium as both medium and collaborator. She cultivates objects, garments, and experimental forms, treating fungal cultures not simply as materials, but as partners that shape process, ethics, and daily habits.

Collaborating with scientists, farmers, artists, and craftsmen, Dasha develops bio-materials and production techniques that result in grown artefacts, interior pieces and wearable art. Her projects—spanning research, commissions, and personal work—invite reflection on the relationships between maker, material, and environment. Her approach emphasizes patience, attentiveness, and letting go of control, exploring how design can emerge as dialogue rather than prescription.