Concept Research
Our project is informed by research on skin microbiome, particularly hand microbiome. We decided to focus on the hand because it is the part of our body that has most contact with the outside environment, and therefore has the biggest “temporal variability” and most diverse composition among all skin microbiome. In our research, we see a call in the scientific community to shift from a pathogen-dominated perspective and instead treat hand microbiome as a dynamic ecosystem. We learnt aside from being affected by genetics, gender, health, the composition of hand microbiome is also affected by our social spaces, immediate environment and lifestyle.
Outside the scientific community, we also see efforts exploring our relationship with hand microbiome in the context of food making, which is much more intuitive and visceral. Jiwon Woo’s Mother’s Hand Taste, where she collected hand microbiome from family members to ferment wine, is a great example of making this relationship clear without relying on scientific terms.
We were inspired by Jiwon’s work and wanted to expand the scale and talk about our relationship with microbiome in a way that is accessible to an even larger audience across different cultures and contexts.
