Future Flora is a harvesting kit designed for women to treat and prevent vaginal infections. It gives them the tools to grow, harvest and then wear their living organisms. The set contains an agar jelly-based element that one wears in a similar manner to a sanitary pad. This is intended to inspire the growth of bacteria that already live in the vagina and act to prevent and treat Candida yeast infections. The kit includes a box that alludes to the Petri dish, a pipette with a freeze-dried bacterial compound (lactobacillus) that is naturally found in the vagina and tweezers. One places the lactobacillus onto the pad and wears the bacteria. This allows for the healthy bacteria to grow.
As of yet, the project is conceptual. So, we won’t be able to order our Future Flora kit and cure our yeast infections with it just yet. Nonetheless, it gets us thinking about candida infections and the taboos that exist surrounding them. Does it make you think differently about bacteria? How do you feel about the idea that we consist almost entirely of bacteria?
The piece is currently on show as part of the exhibition Internet of Women and Things, a the Tetem in Enschede. It will be there till the 14th of May.
Keep your eyes out for Future Flora 2.0, a development of the concept.
