Introduction
The Institute for the Design of Tropical Disease‘s mandate is to establish a space to shift the existing narrative on tropical disease from the dogmatic to the imaginative, exploring what is, was and what could be via a hands-on, critical design process. Appropriating tropical disease as a research medium for art and design, the project addresses the complex relationships that shape disease transmission, exploring the rationale of technological developments and their application in the spread of disease.
The Institute for the Design of Tropical Disease explores the “colonisation of territories” on the molecular, human and environmental scales. These themes are investigated through ongoing design explorations – or subthemes – including:
- White Smog: Human to Insect Chemical Communication
- DiY Quinine: Plants + Medicinal Chimeras
- Breeding Grounds: Architectures of Control
Cinchona bark samples at National Herbarium Netherlands
Cinchona Seeds brought out of the Philippine Islands before the Japanese Invasion (1943)
Making DiY Tonics
Exchanging DiY Tonics x Conversations
Bags of malaria parasites inside a mosquito
Chemical Communication + Artificial Sweat
Becoming Olfactorily Invisible?
SEM image of the head of an Anopheles gambiae mosquito
Rain Rain Go Away! The smell of rain + bacterial death
Pop-Up Bar for World Malaria Day
Project Team
The Institute for the Design of Tropical Disease is produced by Thought Collider, in collaboration with scientists from the Laboratory of Entomology at Wageningen University, researchers at the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, perfumers at International Flavours and Fragrances and Waag Society.
Partners:
Wageningen University
Systemantics
Special thanks to: Prof. dr. Willem Takken and Dr. Niels Verhulst at the Laboratory of Entomology at Wageningen University, Systemantics for IDTD’s online platform, Nienke Helder and Gyalpo Batstra for all their work on the project.
