MICROBIOTOURS is a free walking tour that explores the secret ecologies & bacterial subcultures of the future.
This walking tour of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health campus is set in the year 2036. Each stop on the tour highlights microbiota research, imagining how it might reshape our daily lives and habits over the next two decades.
Debates over the relationship between human health, food, science and culture have made microbiota research one of the most vibrant and contested areas of inquiry in the life sciences. Microbial interactions are notoriously complex, but there are also great pressures to create profitable products and therapies.
This has lead to cycles of hype, skepticism and self-experimentation. This tour explores future fantasies from Paleo Gut Gardening to a Microbiome Pick-n-Mix, and asks you, the tour-goer, to discuss and consider what kind of microbial future you want and desire.
TOUR STOPS:
1. The Shit Bit
The first personalized sequencing technology
2. Rare Endophyte Collectors Club
Plant fungi and bacteria enthusiast meetup poster
3. The Dump Truck
Cosmetic fecal transplantation “food” truck
4. Microorganism Disposal Units
Composting and recycling of living waste
5. Campus Cafe
3D printed plants with temperature, humidity and aromatic controlling microbiomes
6. Field and Sky
A note on ecosystems at multiple scales
7. Paleo Gut Gardening
Club for physical exercise and diversification of human microbiome through the reintroduction of soil to the body
8. Forest Bathing
A microbiology, sociology, and landscape architecture collaboration to encourage stress reduction for Rowett employees and to promote healthy microbiomes
9. Microbiome Pick-n-Mix
A proprietary probiotic station designed for office coffee break areas. Your Shit Bit stool sample reading can guide your Pick-n-Mix probiotic consumption.