Dora Ramljak    
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CV

Capsule of EncounterBiomaterials, medical tool, research paper, lecture performance
(2024–2025)



Capsule of Encounter is a research-driven project investigating the immune system not as a closed defense mechanism, but as an adaptive, relational interface shaped by microbial, ecological, and linguistic entanglements. It challenges dominant biomedical paradigms by foregrounding the role of microbial biodiversity loss in contemporary immune dysregulation, and by examining the epistemic frameworks through which health is defined.

Central to the project is a self-constructed tool for producing capsules from bacterial cellulose, a nanostructured biopolymer synthesized by Komagataeibacter species during fermentation. Characterized by its high mechanical strength, porosity, and biocompatibility, bacterial cellulose is here reconceptualized as more than a biomedical material — as an active membrane capable of hosting and mediating microbial life.

Rather than focusing on the capsule’s content, the project treats the barrier itself as the site of inquiry. Drawing on the material’s probiotic potential and its capacity for microbial exchange, the cellulose functions as a speculative prosthesis for ecological repair, facilitating interactions between human and non-human microbiomes.
The capsule becomes both a literal and symbolic interface between fragmented ecologies: depleted soils, monocultured crops, and compromised human bodies.

The project responds to the cascading effects of microbial impoverishment driven by industrial agriculture, overuse of antibiotics, and environmental sanitization — conditions that simultaneously degrade soil health, plant resilience, and human microbial diversity. These interlinked phenomena are reframed as systemic rather than isolated pathologies.

In parallel, Capsule of Encounter incorporates a lecture performance as a methodological and critical tool. Recognizing that biomedical language not only describes but actively produces bodies and norms, the performance explores how text can become material — a medium for re-narrating immunity, health, and contamination.

Winter Sessions Residency, V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam. Presented at V2 Open Sessions (lecture performance), 21.02.2024, and Open Lab Special: Wintersessions 2025, 11.07.2025.