The maverick Materials Library gave us an experimental and experiential insight into the materiality of flesh and its connection to the human body, culture and medicine. Members of the audience were invited to touch, feel, smell, cut, drill and even taste flesh with experts such as surgeons, body builders, butchers, artists and scientists.

Materials Library

We are a group that explores the beauty, strangeness and science of matter. We are materials scientist Mark Miodownik, artist Zoe Laughlin and designer Martin Conreen. We also run a physical archive that specialises in new and advanced materials collected from research labs all around the world. It is a collection of some of the most extraordinary materials on Earth, such as: a chunk of aerogel from NASA, which, at 99.8 per cent air, is the world's lightest solid and is used to collect space dust; a tile of aluminium nitride that conducts the heat from one's hand efficiently enough to cut ice like butter; and a vial of a totally inert fluorocarbon liquid into which one can place any electronic equipment while continuing to operate it, without any ill-effects. These materials are gathered together not only for scientific interest, but also for their ability to fire the imagination and advance conceptualisation.