Category: Articles

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Periplus workshops: making plastic from dirt

By Leoni Dimond and Louisa Clark

I carved and watched as some of the excess blew in the wind and returned to the dirt at my feet. It felt like this process had ended in a perfect circle.

In the summer of 2025, Leoni and Louisa were two of the dozens of participants who took part in the Periplus Workshops. Periplus is a residency focusing on innovation, materiality and sustainability through art and design and with the help of local people and businesses. Set in various locations across the diverse Greek landscape, it is a submersive experience of Greek culture and nature. In 2025 the workshops took place in two locations; first in the mountainous village of Dimitsana in Arcadia; second in the familiar village of Alikianos in Crete.

The process

During the residency with Periplus, myself and Leoni rethought the process of making linoleum plates for print making. The idea emerged a few days into the residency, after a visit from an essential oil alchemist Simos, using his hand built distillery, and a workshop breakdown on bio-material recipes – using both agar agar and potato starch.

In the afternoon on our outdoor workshop looking over the immense Peloponnese Mountains we got to experimenting with bio-material recipes – another participant (a lot more capable of getting the right ratios) had perfected the recipe using Agar Agar (a plant based gelling product made from red algae) to produce a perfect rubbery cube. My immediate thought was that the cube would be perfect to carve into; and maybe the local clay, grounded up discarded olive pulp, or pounded down concrete rubble would help firm the structure.

Up until this point in the residency I had been drawn to creating a project with the waste materials at our disposal that was accessible, versatile and portable. Drawing and print making are accessible and versatile mediums, specifically print making, offering endless possibilities for textile repeats and print additions. Given more time, I was interested in collaborating with those making paper, textiles, and furniture all from waste products to merge both ideas. Adapting our friends recipe of the pure agar agar to include primarily recycled material from the local area took a couple of days of trial and error, there were many cracks in the intense heat, some shriveled blocks, and curled corners – but we found a recipe that allowed us to carve, print, and most importantly be a draft for Leoni to prototype in Crete.

An important consideration of the workshops is legacy; what can be designed or ideated which can be passed on, or up, to fellow and future participants. Myself and another participant, Louisa, considered this at the beginning of the first workshop in Dimitsana. After leaving and beginning another round of workshops in Crete, I knew I didn’t want to start a new project. I wanted to work at perfecting the idea which Louisa had started as I knew it had potential to help future participants. I felt at home in Alikianos since I had been here before and felt comfortable to start experimenting straight away.

I considered what needed to be improved and came up with three factors: the bio-line needed to be more flexible; it needed to have a smooth and flat surface to carve into; and it needed to stay smooth without cracking over time. I knew these goals would be hard to achieve in the heat so I had to be persistent and make many prototypes. I compared biomaterials which had the most potential from the Material Library with results online. I also tested a total of ten recipes with different ratios of glycerine, agar agar, vinegar and starches. These ingredients bind the biomaterial together to make bioplastic but not all of them need to be present. What defines a successful bioplastic is using as little of these ingredients as possible, and as much of the biomaterial as possible. All of this needs to be considered before considering the benefits and properties of the biomaterial.

I thought the biomaterials such as orange peel or seaweed would be the most successful since they are flexible and rubbery in their natural form. However they turned out to be too fibrous to make a surface which was both smooth and able to be carved into. I needed to use a material which could be used in high quantities and was fine enough to make a smooth texture. I considered the following mineral materials: diatomaceous earth, attapulgite and marble dust. These materials produced textures on either end of the spectrum; the diatomaceous earth and marble dust created texture far too brittle while the attapulgite – a magnesium aluminium silicate clay powder – created a mouldable, plasticine-like texture.I tested the House Dirt on a whim, thinking how odd it would be if this dirt at my feet achieved what the other materials had failed to do. It had to be sieved to get a finer powder, but this dirt turned out to be the most successful material I had used yet. It could even be used in high quantities with a small ratio of agar agar and still bind successfully. The first test, in a petri dish, had dried completely after twenty minutes in the shade. It could be picked up and bended, with a smooth surface which carved like real linoleum (only with a slightly more gritty texture). I was skeptical that it would be able to be washed and reused. However it passed the final test after I printed with it, washed and reused it many times. I could even carve into it again after it had been washed.

I sat for hours carving into this new material and wondered what could possibly be in this dirt which surrounded the house and was able to create such a useful tool. I carved and watched as some of the excess blew in the wind and returned to the dirt at my feet. It felt like this processhad ended in a perfect circle.

Posted on by

Scavenging Through Design

By Leoni Dimond

“Scavenging is not static and its results are always varied. As an act it is uncertain but exciting, inconsistent but always surprising.”

In early 2023, in the ECA cafe, I had my first meeting as part of the ScavCo team. Accessibility, curiosity, open-mindedness, and sustainability were all aims which we hoped to translate into visual communication. We discussed ways to incorporate natural textures and portray the values of the initiative. By forming letters made up of textured pieces, we conveyed the act of Scavenging for materials. In using these pieces as a jigsaw and animating them slotting together, the word Collective was also reflected.


Two years later, we decided it was time for a fresh look. I had two main words in mind. The first was Texture. The lines and segments I had used previously did not convey the feeling of craft that is so strongly associated with our values. I wanted the texture to be recognisable and felt through a screen. I deliberated over a way in which I could maintain a handmade feel, even once it was
digitalised. The second word which came to mind was Versatility. Timeless design is considered the best way to be cohesive and recognisable; and it is far more conventional to have a logo that remains the same over time. However, Scavenging is not static and its results are always varied. As an act it is uncertain but exciting, inconsistent but always surprising. A project which evolves as much as Scavenger Collective needs a design which can be easily moulded to encompass its many forms.


Merging these two thoughts has increased the success of both. By having a less solid shape, this is a logo which can be layered, therefore increasing its versatility. By having a shape which can be combined with other forms, it can create new textures on a screen and in print.

Original design

Pattern abstracted into segments

New texture developed

New segments created from the texture

New design

Potato printing is a craft which many of us did as children. It is accessible and provides so many outcomes from a single origin. This was the perfect way to get started. I sat down with potatoes, paint and some Scavenged paper. And so, a new logo was made from my kitchen. When printing, I used the segments from the previous design and cut the potato into quarters.

This was an element which I felt conveyed both words of Scavenger Collective and I wanted to carry this into the next design. After scanning and digitalising them, I combined the best results in the same way to create the familiar ‘SC’ shapes.

The colourway used in the branding of Scavenger Collective had become so incorporated into our identity. I knew that I wanted these to remain more or less the same. However I didn’t want the yellow to look like a second colour, but act as an off-white. By making this paler and changing the green to a darker, slightly colder colour, there was more contrast.


The final animation used in the previous logo was also very easy to layer over videos and photos for motion graphics. I replicated this as well, but staggered the segments rotating per frame. We decided the motion graphic as a frame-by-frame animation portrays the act of Scavenging well. The segments gradually rotating together like puzzle pieces is symbolic of the storytelling,
gathering and problem solving that is so innate and present in our practice.

Posted on by

Recreating Islamic Geometry: a Workshop

By Pablo Ortuno
Cover image: Marble in El-Choury Mosque, Cairo. (Bourgoin, 1873)

“Create the object, mould it from your culture, your art, religion, philosophy, and future. Mathematics will reveal themselves if they’re there.”

In 1832, French mathematician and revolutionary Evariste Galois dies aged twenty in a fated duel in the middle of a lover’s quarrel, leaving behind in a letter the grounds for a solution to a problem which had stumbled mathematicians for hundreds of years. Galois’ solution studied symmetry in an abstract context, exemplified in Figure 1.

His ideas were picked up later by Camille Jordan (1838-1922), who formalised symmetry in mathematical terms by coining the structures known as “groups”. His work revolutionised the field of algebra at the time, storming the academic elites in Europe into a considerable development in mathematics. Nowadays, group theory, the study of symmetry, is an essential part of mathematics curriculums across universities worldwide.

Nevertheless, the study of symmetry hasn’t always been from a mathematical perspective. One of the largest cultural expressions of symmetry we have evidence of is that of Islamic geometric patterns, particularly those tessellations of a plane with infinitely repeating geometric constructions.

Figure 1: The roots of the equation  (in blue) form a pentagon in an Argand diagram. A highly symmetrical shape.

This decorative style highly concerned with symmetry stems from religious beliefs on the omittance of human and animal representations, and philosophies on the infinity of God and the nature of His creation. The art and the craft needed to be transcendental, formless, and precisely constructed. Words which echo how we think (and thought, back in the days of Jordan and Galois) of pure mathematics being abstract and axiomatic.

Figure 2: Woodwork in the Mosque of Sultan Qaitbay. Cairo, 1474.  (Wade, 2025)

It is then perhaps not surprising that we think of these highly geometrical wallpapers as being mathematical in nature. In doing so, however, we obfuscate the material aspect, the creative exercise, and the artisanal process behind the creation of such ornaments. The symmetry group found in a wooden window in a funerary complex in 1500’s Delhi may be the same as the one plastered in a shop in 1300’s Cairo, but the pieces are anachronical, extraneous, and made of different materials.  These differences can all be forgotten in lieu of the ornaments being mathematical.

However, looking at these ornaments from a mathematical point of view, analysing the symmetry they present, is a fruitful exercise. In doing so, we have gained insight into complex mathematical structures, and the activity of “hunting for groups” presents a lot of didactic opportunities: It allows us to approach abstract mathematics from a familiar place which does not require much prior knowledge and feels intuitive. We see then an opportunity to flip the script in how abstract mathematics is often taught. By putting forward intuition-based methods in the teaching of mathematics, which we bring to life in this workshop, we take the artisan’s point of view and produce infinitely tessellating ornaments through stamping. Placing the process before the abstract, renouncing the mathematical appropriation of our ornaments.

A series of wallpaper details (Bourgoin, 1973)

Our workshop is precisely a testament to a cultural construction of mathematics: Create the object, mould it from your culture, your art, religion, philosophy, and future. Mathematics will reveal themselves if they’re there. 

‘Recreating Islamic Geometry’ will be held on 13/09/2025 from 2-4:30pm, in collaboration with Words and Actions for Piece at 58 Ratcliffe Terrace, EH9 1ST.

Posted on by

Troglotopians: The Loveseat

By Delan Aribigbola

“Everybody must design – after all, that is the best way to avoid being designed by others”

What determines value in a neo-liberal marketplace? “The Loveseat” offers an answer to this question. Built as a modification of Enzo Mari’s ‘P-chair,’ the materials were sourced from the streets of Edinburgh, made out of scrap wood and screws. It’s value is determined by the cultural relevance of its constituent materials, sourced from the city, for the city.

The P-chair was part of a wider project by Mari called “Autoprogettazione”, roughly translated to “Self-Design”. Through this project, Mari attempted to encourage greater consumer criticism by teaching everyday people to design items of furniture, providing them with blueprints of basic chairs, tables and beds. Users were encouraged to modify the blueprints to suit their own environment; through this process, they would develop a taste in design, allowing them to make more informed decisions when buying furniture. As Mari puts it himself; ‘How can form be detached from value and instead be firmly associated to content?’
              This sparks a further question; What determines value in the current market? On one side of the spectrum, value is driven by predictability through standardisation. Part of what makes IKEA so comforting is that we don’t have to imagine what a room could look like – the catalogue does it for us. The convenience of ready-made furniture tends to outweigh the lack of individuality that can come from standardised living.

“If people were to make an object with their own hands, a vase, a shoe, a chair, probably, they would be more aware. They would improve their taste”
– Enzo Mari

On the other side of the spectrum, furniture can act as status symbols. A Wassily chair can act as a signifier that you ‘understand design,’ placing you in a unique group of people who recognise your status as a person with high taste. Ironically, Mari points out that the majority of participants treated his designs in this way, writing letters to the effect of; “I like them very much, I have a holiday house on the Rocky mountains… I like the rustic style very much and I am making all the pieces for my chalet.” This type of reaction values his furniture on attributes outwith the actual design, pushing aside the quality of the object itself and instead centring the surface level aesthetic qualities of the end product.


The initial drive for my project was fuelled by this investigation of the relationship between the consumer value and the design value of everyday objects. Often, the cost and value of furniture is not measured in relation to the product itself; the environmental and social importance of the constituent materials are not counted towards the overall value. We can imagine an alternative value system that places furniture with locally sourced materials that respond to their immediate context at the top of the pyramid. Through using locally sourced materials, the end product acts as a reflection of the place it’s from. In this way, local culture can be entrenched through design.

The use of found materials in the design and construction of the Loveseat speaks to this ambition. A large proportion of these materials are construction waste, which tells a snippet of a story about material streams in Edinburgh. With construction already being the largest contributor to material waste in the UK, and with the Labour Government’s ambition to build 1.4 million new homes by 2029, it is imperative that we ask ourselves how we will manage this waste. Given the scale of waste produced, it is unlikely that one bench can solve the issue. Instead, the Loveseat acts as a statement of intent, showing that waste does not have to be a negative term; without waste, the Loveseat would not exist. This bench is not only a redefinition of waste as a resource, but also transparent reflection of the city it came from, with each material acting as a chapter in the story of its fabrication.

The Loveseat will be exhibited at the TROGLOTOPIANS, a collective exhibition installation exploring alternative ways of viewing the city. The exhibition will be at an underpass on the Restalrig Cycle Path on 20/07/2025.