About this episode

Kestrel Jenkins interviews designer Olivia Cueva about her work at the intersection of biomaterials, fashion, and community education.

In Episode 342, Kestrel welcomes Olivia Cueva, a radical dreamer, designer, technologist, and researcher, to the show. Olivia's work bridges creative technology, fashion, biomaterials, and storytelling to explore transformation, regeneration, and collective care. Her practice moves fluidly between community-centered education, speculative design, and research into sustainable and bio-based materials—always with the aim of sparking dialogue, nurturing resilience, and envisioning more just futures. "A lot of the research that I do now is focused on natural dyes and working with plants and seeing how the natural dyes that we would maybe normally use on natural fibers actually translate to biomaterials. it's been a really amazing process of returning or like sort of remembering ancestry in a way … when I'm working with a certain plant, I'm actually not just looking at its color properties, but I'm also researching what is the story of this plant? How has it been used in different indigenous cultures?" -Olivia THEME — EXPANSIONS AROUND MATERIALITY TO RETHINK FASHION'S SYSTEMS Before we dive in this week, I want to share a massive thank you and shout out to my friend Denali Joie, who…

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