Wang Ya





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Growing Colors

Fabric, Soil Microbes, Chromogenic Reagents, Culture Medium

In both eastern and western cultures, soil is seen as the origin and destination of life. As the Bible says, "For dust you are and to dust you shall return," and describes God forming humans from the "dust of the ground". Similarly, Chinese mythology tells of Nüwa creating humans from clay. From a modern scientific perspective, soil is indeed the foundation of our global ecosystem. About 25% of the Earth's biodiversity lives in the soil. Every gram of soil contains hundreds of millions of microbial cells—bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes—whose rivalries, repulsions, cooperations, and symbioses form intricate communities.

I collected soil samples from the Tsinghua University campus in Beijing and a potato field in the high-altitude region of Qinghai.  To understand what was inside, I washed the soil with water and applied the suspension to a culture medium. After about a day of incubation, I examined the plates under a stereo microscope. A spectacular world, normally invisible to the naked eye, immediately unfolded before me.



Soil microbial colonies

I grew up in a rural village in Chongqing, a mountainous place known for its red soil. As a child, playing in the mud in the fields was my favorite pastime. The grounded, secure feeling of walking barefoot on the earth is a key part of my childhood memories. However, as I grew older and left my hometown for my education, I gradually lost this intimate physical connection with the land.

The strange and magnificent landscapes under the microscope left me in awe. I tried to record them with my phone, but I felt limited by the screen and the device—I didn't want such wonders to be accessible only through expensive laboratory equipment. As a textile design student, my instinct was to translate these visuals into patterns on fabric. However, I soon realized that as I simplified the images into decorative designs, they became cleaner but lost the raw vitality I saw under the lens. The way microbes maintain order amidst their complex growth is something that even the most skilled human designer finds hard to replicate.

While I was struggling with this, I showed these photos to the Ph.D. students in Professor Yu Li's lab and casually remarked, "If only the microbes could 'paint' directly on the fabric." To my surprise, this sparked an idea: Could we use the metabolic coloring techniques from microbiology to let patterns grow directly onto the textile? How do we grow microbes on rough fabric? How do we fix the living colors?

These questions, which we had never considered before, filled us with excitement. I collaborated with Jinhao Liu, a Ph.D. candidate in the lab. Together, we broke these challenges down into basic scientific questions and sought answers step by step.


We explored many approaches: screening soil microbes, adjusting culture conditions (temperature, humidity, ambient light, and oxygen concentration), testing various fabrics and chromogenic agents, refining fixation formulas, and setting up time-lapse photography.
Finally, we succeeded in recording the microbes growing and weaving together on the fabric under a standard lens.







Growing Colors on Cotton



I noticed that conditions like humidity and oxygen altered the competition between microbes, changing the resulting patterns. So, I integrated traditional Tie-dye techniques. I used Tie-dye to shape the fabric—thereby controlling local oxygen and humidity levels—to create a framework, and then let the microbes grow and fill in the details spontaneously.





Ultimately, I produced four large-scale works measuring 180cm × 50cm. The overall structure follows my Tie-dye design, while the countless minute details were formed spontaneously by the microbes as they grew—creating unique, non-replicable patterns.







Sequencing Data

In my experiment, I used soil samples from two different regions: one from a school site in Beijing and the other from farmland in Qinghai. I sent these soil samples to a sequencing company for analysis to identify the specific types of microorganisms present in the soil, which will be useful for further analysis of the resulting patterns.

  Functional Correlation Analysis of Soil Microorganisms 
in Beijing and Qinghai
Species Difference Analysis of Soil Microorganisms 
in Beijing and Qinghai
Species Difference Analysis of 
Soil Microorganisms 
in Beijing and Qinghai

With Professor Yu Li's support, I am continuing this project. I plan to sequence the microbes at different spots on the fabric to understand how their complex "social relationships" create these beautiful patterns. I also hope to use this "Art + Science" method to test soil from different regions, exploring more topics related to nature and humanity.


The exhibition venue



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