Kamila Iżykowicz

KAMILA IżYKOWICZ

Poetic designer, empathy researcher and future thinker.

Currently working on design investigations into bio-parallels, creating a sensual dialogue between species.

MA 2021 graduate and PhD candidate at the School of Design at the Royal College of Art.

Distinctions

MA dissertation 'Bio-Parallels', RCA, UK

BA cum Laude, School of Form, PL

Showcased

at Tate Modern: Staged on Screen, London Design Biennale, Dutch Design Week, Łodz Design Festival, Vienna Design Week.

Award

winner of Creative Conscience, Grand Challenge (RCA, CERN and Logitech) and the Art and Fashion Forum.

Speaker

at University at Buffalo, Tischner European University and Design INDABA conferences.

⏤ Iżykowicz designs by using her personal experiences to reach a balance between skill, knowledge and intuition. She bases her work on the effect of the senses and an individual understanding of time. With her multidisciplinary interests in writing and filmmaking, she’s a poetic designer with a unique sensibility towards function. [designindaba.com]

⏤ Breath is a temporary pact of volatile exchange between the animal and plant kingdoms.

The Department of Culture for Breath in 2030 presents a digital archive of multispecies scents from native pine forests.

The project explores an unsettled future, questioning humanity’s relationships with other living entities. It proposes a series of speculative video capsules to highlight the value of breath — and the importance of our sense of smell — by examining them within a digital vacuum. AuraForest is a catalogue of loss: the loss of breath, loss of smell, loss of species.

The Library of Scents was excavated from the most ancient forest in Eastern Europe, derived from a tree known to humans as the Scots Pine...

SCENT — HERBAL DEEP WET SOFT WARM MOIST RESINOUS

SCENT — EARTHY SWEET DEEP WET SOFT WARM MOIST

SCENT — SWEET DIMMED SMOKY POWDERY WARM RESINOUS

SCENT — EARTHY DEEP WARM RICH HUMID WET

SCENT — BITTER MOIST DEEP

Launch Project

[learn about the full process behind AuraForest]

Biodesign Climate crisis Environmental Justice Ethics Ethics (non-human)Healthcare Multispecies Nature Speculative Design Speculative Futures Sustainability Wellbeing

An ongoing investigation into biomaterials that questions the lifespan of valuable products and the use of natural resources.

I am working on the creation of a material—or rather a new technique of shaping and drying biomaterials—that can hold an embedded scent while also disappearing in time, shifting its value from permanent to temporary and volatile.

Jewellery is often a physical representation of our social status, a material means of wearing—and showing off—something precious.

This evolved into an artefact from a fictional tribe that measured time in breaths instead of minutes as part of the AuraForest project. They would embed multispecies scents into their wearables as a demonstration of their appreciation for the symbiotic relationship between themselves and their habitat.

Biodesign Biodiversity Ecology Ethics (non-human)Multisensory Multispecies Nature Senses Speculative Future Speculative Futures Sustainability