 alma toolkit


Biofilie Lab
Growing Vaginal Microbiome at Home



Biofilie Lab is a kitchen based educational lab to learn how to grow vaginal microbiome at home. During the workshop, participants will access the procedure of the Biofilie Lab protocol and explore their personal relationship with vaginal microbiome and its understanding following recent scientific studies. There is a growing interest in the vaginal microbiome from the citizen science field, but there is still room to discuss the power balance in the conversation. Biofilie Lab is also an interdisciplinary project aimed to explore the biosocial and political intersectionality of human-vaginal microbiome combining disciplines like art, design, microbiology, medical anthropology and feminist theories. The project will engage in a political questioning of the emergence of the new scientific understandings on vaginal microbiome.
Biofilie Lab project is part of a larger work called the ALMA Toolkit project, a set of educational tools and practices for self-exploration, a fundamental means carried out by feminist collectives to re-appropriate the body. Microbiology, science and laboratories are still inaccessible but fundamental fields because they are not neutral and in turn create categories and identities that are subject to a hierarchy of knowledge. This is why we decided to develop the Biofilie Lab Protocol and focus on the vaginal microbiome, i.e. the set of micro-organisms with which we live in symbiosis. We hope that this protocol will become more and more accessible and will serve to better understand this symbiosis.


CURIOUS TO JOIN US?
We are looking for people with vaginal microbiome to try our protocol at home and give us feedback.
If interested email us at  hello@al-ma-org

SOON the Biofilie Lab Protocol online! 
Below a guide and a video demonstration of each step of the protocol:


1. Prepare Biofilie medium

2. Collect cervical fluids

3. Swab your fluids on petri

4. Grow with an incubator 

5. Observe your microbiome




This video demonstrates how to follow the Biofilie Lab Protocol and grow vaginal microbiome at home. 
We recorded the video during our residency at Hangar.org - more info below 



******
  November 2023

First workshop happened in Lugano with MAKEAWARE! Project 
Friday, November 24
15.00-18.30

at SUPSI Campus
via Flora Ruchat-Roncati, 15
Mendrisio - CH

******
  Septmeber 2023

In September, we particpated to a residency at the wet lab in Hangar.org in Barcelona to test and develop Biofilie Lab.
This talk was performed and recorded during the residency.
Thanks to Gaia Leandra, our mentor and founder or the wet lab. Thanks to Hangar.org for hosting us and S+T+Arts Cross Fertilization programm to support ALMA Toolkit project.