Brussels-based designer Ori Orisun Merhav harnesses a natural polymer secreted by tiny lac insects to craft radiant sculptures and functional art. Her pioneering endeavor, dubbed 'Made by Insects,' involves heating and shaping this amber-hued resin, commonly known as shellac, into ethereal, translucent bubble formations. Some of these delicate structures are elegantly poised on metallic frameworks, while others are ingeniously arranged as elaborate, suspended lighting fixtures. Merhav's visionary application of shellac extends its utility far beyond its conventional role as a protective sealant. This innovative research, which explores the material's potential in 3D printing and large-scale architectural elements, has earned her a prestigious 2026 Dutch Design Award, underscoring her commitment to incorporating bio-derived substances into contemporary design and construction.
The Ingenious Exploitation of a Biological Polymer in Design
Ori Orisun Merhav, a designer operating out of Brussels, is at the forefront of a novel design practice that leverages a natural polymer sourced from minuscule lac insects. Her 'Made by Insects' initiative reimagines shellac, typically a mundane protective coating, as a medium for artistic expression, forging it into luminous sculptures and sculptural furnishings. Through a meticulous process involving controlled heating and blowing, Merhav transforms the amber-toned material into intricate arrangements of translucent bubbles. These creations range from clusters delicately balanced on steel armatures to grand, chandelier-like installations. Her groundbreaking work, recognized with a 2026 Dutch Design Award, pushes the boundaries of material application, exploring the integration of this insect-derived substance into innovative 3D printing techniques and architectural-scale projects, thereby proposing a sustainable and biologically informed future for design.
The journey of shellac from insect secretion to designer material is a fascinating one. The Kerria lacca insects, no larger than a grain of sand, attach themselves to host trees, consuming sap and producing a natural resin that encases their bodies. This hardened resin, harvested and processed, becomes the shellac that Merhav employs. Her initial encounter with these insects during her studies at Design Academy Eindhoven sparked a profound interest in their biological polymer production. This led her to Thailand, where she immersed herself in lac cultivation practices and the communities involved, gaining insights into the insects' life cycles and the agricultural context of their production. Her 2022 graduation project, 'The Lac Lab Open Source,' evolved into 'Made by Insects,' an ongoing exploration of shellac's potential, also highlighting the economic challenges faced by natural resin producers due to synthetic alternatives.
Translating Natural Structures into Contemporary Forms
Upon returning to her studio, Merhav embarked on an extensive exploration of shellac's capabilities beyond its traditional applications. She discovered that the material's thermoplastic properties, softening when heated and solidifying upon cooling, allowed for its manipulation into thin membranes and hollow forms, much like glassblowing. Her early experiments resulted in large, singular bubbles, but their inherent fragility led her to re-examine the insects' natural protective structures. This closer observation revealed that the insects' enclosures were composed of numerous smaller, interconnected cells. This insight proved transformative, guiding Merhav to adopt a new methodology: blowing smaller volumes of shellac and then intricately joining them to create larger, more robust structures. This approach directly mirrors the insects' construction principles, resulting in a unique design language of clustered forms.
Examples like the 'Branching Insects Chandelier' and 'Meet Me Under the Insects Tree' showcase this innovative technique, where amber-hued bubbles gracefully expand along slender metal supports. These pieces emit a warm, inviting glow, their uneven surfaces adding to their organic allure. The finished works possess an almost botanical aesthetic, yet their underlying structural integrity is derived from the very shelters crafted by the lac insects. Furthermore, Merhav has expanded her research into digital fabrication, collaborating with partners like Ginger Additive, Reflexlab, and Aeditto to produce the first 3D-printed shellac objects. This cutting-edge process investigates how a naturally occurring polymer can be extruded through a printer without chemical modification, with temperature and material behavior influencing the final forms. Her 'Morphopoiesis' vessels, characterized by irregular, cellular walls and dense networks of deposited material, exemplify this emerging technique. Merhav's ongoing exhibition, 'Portal Into The Multi-Species,' at the Sarah Myerscough Gallery in London, invites visitors into an immersive environment of delicate shellac bubbles attached to steel branches, culminating in 'The Woven Insect Canopy,' where palm sheaths coated in resin are internally illuminated by LEDs, revealing their intricate woven structure and reimagining a natural protective material as an integral part of an envisioned architectural landscape.
