Pavels Hedström Wants to Help Humans Live More Intimately

Pavels Hedström wants to help humans live more intimately, and equitably, with other species. He asks, “What if design education’s focus on ‘making stuff real’ perpetuates everything that is wrong with current reality?” His Inxect Suit is a hooded PVC suit and face mask (based on the gear worn to clean oil rigs) that a person shares with a colony of mealworms. The suit belly nurtures the worms, which can digest certain forms of plastic, and then the mealworms can be consumed “like shrimp popcorn” for human sustenance. He calls his process “working with playfulness around really scary shit.” “It’s a bit like in Zen. You strip the mind down, to understand the core of what is important,”