What began as a desire to challenge how we engage with food evolved into a deeply personal and embodied journey of reconnecting with the gut—not just as a digestive organ, but as a site of memory, intuition, and microbial intelligence.

The process was messy, alive, and full of learning. I worked with bacterial cultures and fermentation as living materials, observing their behavior and rhythms through sourdough, kombucha, and other microbial experiments. These early stages were driven by curiosity and a desire to make the invisible visible—an attempt to expose the liveliness of food and unsettle our consumption habits.

Gradually, my attention turned inward. I engaged in daily gut-centered practices and somatic exercises that invited me to listen—to track sensation, energy, and mood as they moved through my abdomen. These rituals, though small, opened a space of intimacy with my body. Sourdough making became more than fermentation—it became a relational act, a form of care and communication.

The project ultimately shifted from external provocation to internal attunement. It culminated in a bioreactor modeled after the gut and a collective fermentation ritual. But more than these outcomes, the core learning was this: when we begin to design with, rather than for or against the body, new forms of agency and empathy emerge. Through microbial kinship, slowness, and embodied presence, The Secret Life of Our Gut invites us to unlearn control—and instead, enter into conversation with the life inside.