2024 UCSF Library Artist in Residence, Ruth Tabancay, presents “Bacteria as an Embroidered Stitch.”

Join us for a craft that celebrates what’s seen under the microscope! In this hands-on embroidery workshop, artist Ruth Tabancay will teach participants how to make two types of stitches that resemble bacteria as seen microscopically and mealworms in actual size! Instructions will be provided on how to create embroidery set in Petri dishes. Experience is helpful but not necessary to participate.

The workshop is presented on Earth Day, April 22, to draw attention to the extreme problem of plastic pollution that is overwhelming the planet.

What to bring

This is an in-person workshop. All materials will be provided.

Registration is required and open to UCSF ID badge holders. Admission for this workshop is FREE.

Inspiration for the workshop

As a bacteriology major and medical student, Ruth Tabancay has developed a long-standing and intimate visual relationship with micro-organisms, as seen through a microscope. Using characteristics of bacteria and fungi (e.g., shape, color, relative size, flagella, endospores, arrangement, and immunofluorescence), she embroidered microorganisms and set them into Petri dishes. Her series, What’s In You and On You: Normal Flora and Pathogens, depicts more than 50 kinds of microorganisms rendered in hand embroidery, identifiable by their stitched characteristics.

This led to her series, Adapting to New Substrates. Combined with her research into living organisms’ ability to digest plastic, she created a series of art works of embroidered organisms on various kinds of plastic discards. Mealworms such as Tenebrio molitor, Tenebrio obscurans, and Zophobas morio have been shown to digest polystyrene (Styrofoam); Bacillus pseudofirmus, low density polyethene (LDPE); Ideonella sakaiensis, polyethlene terephthalate (PET).

Accomodations

UCSF welcomes everyone, including people with disabilities to our events. To request a reasonable accommodation for this event, please contact Dylan Romero by emailing dylan.romero@ucsf.edu as soon as possible.

Questions?

Contact Dylan Romero at dylan.romero@ucsf.edu if you have questions about this event.

Image credit: Dana Davis