How a centuries-old quest for transformation is fuelling today’s art and design practices by Yev Kravt Under the dim glow of a medieval lamp, an alchemist might have watched molten metal slip into new shapes, forging a path between substance and spirit. There in the flickering of the flame, they would have seen life’s grand puzzle unfold: if lead could become gold, perhaps everything was capable of transformation – even human consciousness. Today, artists and designers still pursue that ancient quest for metamorphosis. Now, though, the transformation is no longer found in the distillation processes of an alembic but in the discovery of materials imbued with contemporary meaning. It is a way of making sense of a world that so often doesn’t make sense at all, by reframing and reusing what already exists, collaborating with living microbes, glitching pixels or reawakening traditions that have long been dormant.
When we speak of alchemy, we often conjure images of hooded figures hunched over crucibles, lost in arcane secrets. Historically, sure, that lineage is there – in Greco-Egyptian roots of chemeia, the Arabic al- and the Aristotelian swirl of water, fire, earth and air in a cosmic dance. These beliefs once fed a narrative of transmutation: base metals into gold, body into soul, known into unknown. Now this transformation is activated by a fifth element: storytelling. When you stroll through exhibitions today, you witness a morphing of meaning, especially when it comes to materials. This meaning can be here, in the tangible world, or duplicated and uploaded to the cloud.
Materials, in general, are having their moment. They starred at the 2024 Venice Biennale in Foreigners Everywhere, took center stage in the Barbican’s Unravel exhibition and were highlighted in the Hard/Soft show at MAK in Vienna. Their various shapes, textures, patterns, functions and provenances keep us busy and restless. Of course, materials themselves are nothing new; they’ve always been the foundation of objects, structures and craft. What has changed is their role. Today, designers are experimenting in labs to create new sustainable materials, or even structures grown from living cells. Pioneers of nanotechnology are trying to develop materials that change color, while digital artists are using data as pigment, probing entirely new boundaries. It’s no longer just about function or form, but materials have instead become actors in the stories we share.
Unlike modern science, alchemy is often considered as a blend of scientific enquiry, mythology, magic and religion (occult). It is a practice of a twofold nature – exoteric and esoteric. Fogelberg points to a reminiscent sense of alchemy in the practices of new designers: “…for their intuitive work has little to do with conventional science, and involves materials from the commonplace to the curious.” In many ways, material alchemy has taken on new meaning as a way todistill the truth behind a narrative, for mediating polarised societies, or even for capturing the human (and occasionally, the non-human) spirit in the digital realm.
Artists and designers are excavating long forgotten materials and methodologies to build these materials, of which I will share several examples as we go. Just as alchemists once described the “secret fire” concealed within matter, contemporary creators might speak similarly of the stories they embed in clay, code or living tissue. It’s a shift from the chemical to the conceptual, from chasing the philosopher’s stone to unlocking ancestral knowledge, memory, ecological DNA, and the symbiosis between humans and the earth. Behind it all lies that same alchemical impulse: the belief that by engaging deeply with matter or material, we can find transformative insights, and maybe, just maybe, even learn something about ourselves.
A good example of these contemporary preoccupations is Formafantasma, a research-based design studio that considersthe ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping design today. Their work often starts with a simple but profound question: where do things come from? And where do they go when we’re finished with them? With that, they often look to the past to design for the future. In De Natura Fossilium (2014), Formafantasma turned to lava, reimagining it not as a static material but as a molten force of nature. “It was an alchemical process, almost primordial,” Andrea Trimarchi reflected in an interview. “You go to a foundry, you melt stone, and it becomes glass. They were cryptic objects we didn’t even design. They were coming out of the mold without us even thinking about them.”
Formafantasma’s project, thus, is less about design in a conventional sense than it is about digging into forgotten processes and materials – an act of cultural archaeology for a world starving for ecological common sense. Formafantasma’s investigations rarely stop at the object itself. Their work extends into dialogues with scientists, artists and NGOs, creating a constant exchange of knowledge that informs their material research. From volcanic ash to forest ecosystems, their projects bridge natural history with contemporary design, always interrogating the systems that shape our relationship to materials. Their latest work, Oltre Terra, is an ongoing investigation into the history, ecology, and global dynamics of wool production – a natural fiber as ancient as they come, now reexamined in light of today’s environmental challenges.
Shifting focus from the raw and natural to the speculative and reimagined, we find the work of Shahar Livne – a designer who doesn’t simply shape materials but conjures entirely new ones. The title of her Lithoplast project already hints at its hybrid essence: lithos (stone) and plast (capable of being shaped or molded). In this project, Livne uses discarded plastics– waste that would otherwise haunt landfills for centuries – to simulate the geological processes that transform sediment into stone. The result is uncanny. Lithoplast feels ancient, as though it has been unearthed from a long-forgotten era, yet it is disturbingly modern, with a manufactured sediment that speaks directly to humanity’s indelible impact on the planet. It asks unsettling questions about the permanence of what we leave behind: what does it mean when even our waste becomes part of the Earth’s geological history? Here, alchemy appears in geo-mimicking compression – waste, soil, and time coalescing into a substance that challenges our assumptions about permanence and transformation. Livne’s process is both visceral and speculative, questioning how we can reshape our footprints into something that conveys both our failures and our hopes.
In the work of Zsofia Kollar, we can unpack this ethical dilemma yet further. When I met Kollar, it was in the chemistry lab at Brightlands, surrounded by fields in the rural Dutch province of Limburg. Here, she posed a question that stayed with me: “what is the value of human waste?” At the time, I wasn’t aware of the particular material to which her query referred: human hair. With 12 million hair salons across the world, each producing around 15 kilograms of hair waste per month, that amounts to an estimated 2.2 billion kilograms of hair discarded annually, a biomass with no efficient solution for disposal.
With its slow degradation, hair lingers in landfills, occupying massive amounts of space while contributing to ecological harm. As it breaks down, leachate seeps into water systems, increasing nitrogen levels and triggering eutrophication, a process that devastates aquatic ecosystems. Burning it, still a common practice in many regions, releases toxic gases like ammonia, adding air pollution to the list of its environmental consequences. Through her Human Material Loop project,Kollar reimagines hair as a reusable resource, a renewable and biodegradable material that’s readily available in every locality. For the artist, hair is not just waste; it’s an overlooked material waiting to be woven into a circular economy. By tapping into scientific processes, she transforms this discarded byproduct into something of value, specifically for the textile industry.
Stepping away slightly from the field of critical design and into the sphere of contemporary art, alchemical practices also find new expression in unexpected forms. In the world of textiles, Colombian artist Olga de Amaral transforms weaving into something weightier. Her golden tapestries, often titled Alquimia, are shimmering meditations on light, space and spirituality; these works radiate, their gilded surfaces holding conversations between cultures and histories. There’s the gleam of Bogotá’s Catholic altars, their gold leaf heavy with ritual, alongside the echoes of pre-Columbian metalwork, where gold symbolised a direct connection to the divine. Far from static, de Amaral’s works become mystical landscapes, shimmering with an unpredictable energy. At a distance, each tapestry dissolve into fields of shifting light and vivid colour. Up close, its details emerge, threads that hum with the weight of ancestral memory, interwoven with reflections of Colombia’s terrain and its deep cultural roots.
Retrieving these threads of living memory, the work of Otobong Nkanga is another compelling example. Confronting the scars of mining and resource extraction, her installations follow the trajectory of minerals and pigments, tracing their transformation from raw earth to luxury objects. What’s left in their wake is pollution, trauma and landscapes that bear the weight of human greed. And yet, Nkanga doesn’t stop at the wreckage. Amid the devastation, she uncovers seeds of transformation, recasting these very materials as cultural artifacts and imagining futures where our relationship with the earth might be more regenerative. “You could call it an alchemy or a form of magic,” Nkanga herself says. “Or a kind of logic or illogic or instinct”. Crucially, Nkanga is drawn to worlds where the unknown holds sway, where alternative outcomes might yet unfold.
From threads to beads, Kapwani Kiwanga’s installation at the last Venice Biennale revolved around conterie – tiny glass seed beads that were once used as currency and dispersed globally from the Venetian island of Murano. In Kiwanga’s hands, these delicate beads became silent witnesses to the brutal transactions that shaped centuries of trade, power and exploitation:a violent economy that fuelled their journey across continents. The pavilion itself seemed draped in history; Floor-to-ceiling curtains of conterie hung like shimmering relics, their fragility at odds with the harsh realities they symbolise. But Kiwanga wasn’t conjuring grandeur. She was instead casting light on the hidden histories embedded in these unassuming objects with an alchemist’s hand, transforming the mundane and familiar into a lens through which the truth becomes sharp and undeniable.
If storytelling and research form the bedrock of contemporary art and design, the digital offers an equally potent space for probing transformation. Digital artist LuYang, for example, creates herself an alter ego spun from code and pixels. Her series, DOKU the Self, introduces a genderless humanoid avatar, its face modelled on her own, navigating synthetic landscapes under algorithmic skies. The avatar’s name, Doku, is drawn from the Japanese phrase Dokusho Dokushi – “we are born alone and die alone.” At first glance, Doku’s world shimmers with the seductive logic of a dream: fragmented, surreal and infinitely malleable. Yet beneath this façade lies a meditation on mortality and longing. In The Self, Doku flickers between disintegration and reassembly, using digital platforms as crucibles for transformation. Here, code replaces solid material, but the artist is seeking to forge a connection between digital substance and spirit. Uploading herself to the cloud, she makes herself immortal.
Art and design are inherently transformative processes, where materials become mediums for storytelling and innovation. This transformation goes beyond aesthetics, combining craftsmanship with a sensibility that imbues objects with meaning, emotion and cultural connection. By merging traditional techniques with contemporary experimentation, designers and artists craft living narratives, where materiality, form and context come together in dialogue. With a deep commitment to sustainability, authenticity and the relationship between maker and material, these approaches together constitute a thoughtful response to the complexities of a world in flux.
There is, though, a restlessness in the air: as if art and design might soon outgrow those labels, morphing into something stranger and more fantastic than we’ve previously envisioned. Biofabrication and AI engines appear where glass flasks and heated crucibles once ruled. A designer grows buildings from mushroom spores; on a screen running 24/7, generative algorithms conjure patterns too complex for the human mind. It’s easy to wave this off as yet another fad, but a real fervor underpins it, a collaborative sense that maybe, by pooling our research on nanotechnological dyes, AI-generated structures, or biodegradable materials, we might find that elusive formula for a better future.
Storytelling has become the fifth element, binding these transformations together. It weaves through the work of contemporary artists and designers, driving a new kind of alchemy where materials, systems and ideas are transmuted into something profound. Perhaps alchemy has never truly been a relic of medieval lore, but is something from the now, mirroring humanity’s enduring desire to reshape reality. The opportunity is clear: to create metamorphoses not just from raw materials but from the ideas, systems and tools already at hand, forging a future that is both luminous and lasting.
Where the ancient alchemists sought to draw gold from lead, today’s call is to coax out a sustainable future, to restore what has been eroded, through storytelling. The furnace remains lit, though it now burns with the sparks of digital ingenuity, biological innovation, and conceptual leaps. If the alchemists of old found hidden potential in base metals, today’s practitioners discover it in waste, natural threads and pixels. Whether working with glass, ore, fabric or code, the goal remains the same: to transform the raw into forms that resonate with meaning. Each of the artists and designers featured here, as well as countless others, tell the tale of an age-old refrain: we are not mere observers of transformation; we are its creators.
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