Bojana Ginn's plastic eating fungi

December 11th, 2024

Bojana Ginn's interactive exhibition as Georgia Tech's Artist in Residence (Courtesy of Bojana Ginn)

Atlanta artist Bojana Ginn has made significant waves in the art world since leaving her position as a doctor to focus fully on her craft. Ginn was selected this previous summer to be one of Georgia Tech’s Artists in residence, which focuses on using art to enhance STEM education.

She spent six months utilizing Georgia Tech’s resources to create a series of projects that straddle the line between science and artistic expression.

Her program wrapped up in November, and Ginn recently joined “City Lights” producer Jacob Smulian to discuss how she ended up in the art world and her experiences inside the Georgia Tech artist residency program.

“Georgia Tech for me [fit] like a glove,” says Ginn about her time spent as a resident, which began with an exploration of AI tools to create visualizations of large plastic sheets being eaten away by fungi.

She then turned to the expertise of Georgia Tech’s students and staff to bring those visions into the real world, sourcing a recyclable material called thermoplastic polyester (PETG) to use as her medium for fungi digestion. To find a fungi capable of digesting plastics, Ginn again turned to the expertise of Georgia Tech’s biolabs, landing on a species capable of breaking down her PETG’s almost completely, or turning it into a bio-leather.

Although she initially intended to place a large sheet of plastic in the center of her exhibit space for visitors to interact with, toxicity concerns with the byproducts of the fungi led her to create two smaller versions of her vision encased in plexiglass. The final part of her exploration involved creating a series of therapeutic videos with shapes and colors that soothe visitors as they walk through, all unified with an interactive element that responds directly to visitor feedback. “You put your finger on a detector that takes your pulse and oxygen level and that pulse and oxygen level create artwork in front of your eyes,” said Ginn, “So you can get connected with your body,”

While Ginn’s project with Georgia Tech is no longer on display, but she currently has an infinity mirror meditation room called TRANQUILOSCOPE at Pulman Yards. It is a part of a larger project called REFLECTIONS: Illuminating Diversity in Medicine Through Art. The project is free and open to the public until Jan. 11.

Information about REFLECTIONS can be found here.