This artist is creating furniture from slaughtered bird flu-infected chickens -- and it’s pretty amazing
(photo: Emilie van Spronsen)
What do you do with 150,000 slaughtered chickens? Dutch artist Emilie van Spronsen is turning them into furniture.
Back in 2014, the H5N8 strain of avian flu was detected at a number of poultry farms across the Netherlands. In order to avoid spread, entire flocks were slaughtered and destroyed, creating dumpsters filled with their corpses. Witnessing this destruction, van Spronsen looked into whether it would be possible to make use of the all of this destruction without risking further spread of the virus.
“Project H5N8 was initiated to bring a last homage to the bird flu chicken,” she explains.
As part of her graduation project from the Industrial Design Engineering program at TU Delft, van Spronsen researched how she could turn the chickens into design material. She discovered that cooking them for three seconds at a temperature of 70 °C killed the virus. “In theory we could even eat those chickens when they are cooked,” she says. “But who wants potentially contaminated chicken?”
Once the chickens were free of the virus, van Spronsen got to work on turning each part into a useable material. Feathers became filler, feet were made into leather and bones could be ground into a type of ceramic.
(photo: Emilie van Spronsen)
(photo: Emilie van Spronsen)
Though she tested out a number of designs and prototypes, van Spronsen eventually landed on making a stool and a vase.
The concept for the stool came from her research where she discovered that chicken materials are used in a number of consumer products including car tires and pillows – but they can rarely be seen.
“The seat of H5N8 Stool is made of coloured chicken feathers embedded in bio-epoxy. It seems to reveal the inside of a pillowcase, as the chicken feathers float in transparent epoxy. Although the shape looks light and soft, it feels rigid,” she explains.
(photo: Emilie van Spronsen)
For the vase, she found her inspiration in traditional bone china.
“The ceramic urn can be 3D printed from a mixture of chicken bone ash and clay,” she explains. “The pattern on the iconic shaped urn was inspired by the bird flu virus: This is what the H5N8 virus cell looks like as seen through a microscope.”
While some might cringe at the thought of infected chickens being used to make furniture and decorative items, van Spronsen simply shrugs. “In this way, the chickens did not die for nothing.”
What do you think of the H5N8 project? Tweet us your thoughts at @YahooStyleCA.
