Re-Wrap
Kavya Gunasekar
SCOBY paper
2025
Re-wrap responds directly to the themes from Design to Disappear, and Material Narratives. The project reimagines gift wrapping; an object that is emotionally meaningful yet environmentally destructive, through a living, regenerative material. By cultivating kombucha cellulose, embedding seeds, and conditioning the surface with natural coatings, I transform a single-use product into a cyclical system: a wrap that can be used, planted, and grown. The material itself becomes the storyteller, carrying traces of fermentation, drying, dyeing, and decay. Its impermanence is intentional; disappearance is built into its purpose.
Kavya Gunasekar
SCOBY paper
2025
Re-wrap responds directly to the themes from Design to Disappear, and Material Narratives. The project reimagines gift wrapping; an object that is emotionally meaningful yet environmentally destructive, through a living, regenerative material. By cultivating kombucha cellulose, embedding seeds, and conditioning the surface with natural coatings, I transform a single-use product into a cyclical system: a wrap that can be used, planted, and grown. The material itself becomes the storyteller, carrying traces of fermentation, drying, dyeing, and decay. Its impermanence is intentional; disappearance is built into its purpose.
The connection between material, medium, and subject is central. Gift wrapping is traditionally made from trees, plastics, and laminates that end up as instant waste. By shifting the medium to a grown material, the ecological cost and cultural meaning of wrapping change. The act of gifting becomes part of an ongoing ecological process rather than an endpoint.
This work reflects my broader practice of exploring material ethics, speculative sustainability, and the emotional lives of objects. I’m drawn to materials that behave, change, and resist control; materials that reveal systems we usually don’t see. Re-wrap is both a critique of disposability and a proposal for more intimate, reciprocal relationships with the materials we use.
This work reflects my broader practice of exploring material ethics, speculative sustainability, and the emotional lives of objects. I’m drawn to materials that behave, change, and resist control; materials that reveal systems we usually don’t see. Re-wrap is both a critique of disposability and a proposal for more intimate, reciprocal relationships with the materials we use.
