Student Team from MICA Named Overall Winner at the 2023 Biodesign Challenge

A team of students from the MICA course “Grow the Future” has been named the Overall Winner of the Biodesign Challenge at the 2023 Biodesign Summit, a competition of top art, design, and research institutions from around the world.

Led by Ryan Hoover ’06 (Mount Royal School of Art MFA), faculty in Interdisciplinary Sculpture, the MICA team’s project, Mother Nacre, was presented alongside 44 others. from June 22-23 at Parsons School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Projects were judged by a panel of 41 experts from art, design, academia, and industry.

With their winning work, Mother Nacre’s team of students aim to change people’s relationship with plastic objects through the development of a Plastic Heirloom, which encases sentimental plastic objects in biomimetic nacre. Nacre, also known as mother of pearl, is a coating that mollusks use to protect against irritants.