“People have a extremely bad stigma about sweat and naturally find it disgusting,” says British designer Alice Potts. To Alice, nonetheless, sweat could be nothing short of gorgeous. A lot in order that the RCA graduate has spent the last two years turning other people’s bodily fluids and even her own into intricate crystal embellishments and fashioning it into wearable art, something she debuted earlier this yr as a part of her MA collection.

Using the technique of chromatography, and in collaboration with Imperial College London, Alice took sweat samples from worn-out football jerseys, ballerina flats and sneakers, extracting organic compounds from the traces of bodily fluid to permit each crystal to grow.

The human body comprises two major sweat glands – the eccrine and apocrine glands. The previous is odourless and it’s the gland Alice personally works with for her research, while the latter secretes fatty materials and oils that naturally come from greasy hair, armpits and the groin area. “That’s the stuff people associate with smelling bad, but sweating is definitely a extremely beautiful process,” says Alice. “Sweating is a scent and it’s stuffed with good bacteria. If you happen to wash it off right away, it doesn’t have a probability to kill the bad bacteria in your skin and means it never gets a probability to truly clean itself – that’s why ever since I began doing my project I’ve began washing less.”

When it got here to harvesting her own sweat, Alice would take part in hardcore training programmes with a private gym coach, wearing the identical clothes for over every week to know how sweat production changes with different sports, diets and health routines. “My interest in sweat comes from fusing my identity into my very own work. I didn’t need to design something that I wasn’t a part of as well. I didn’t intend to make something and get feedback from people, I actually wanted to know what I used to be doing, why I used to be doing it and what effects it might have on me.”

Over the course of her experiment, Alice removed all alcohol, prescribed drugs, carbohydrates, fats and proteins from her life. She was fascinated by how the little things in a weight loss program could manipulate the body; how small doses of sugar can increase muscle mass, or how drinking a lot of wine will help develop a more muscular look.

Learning the science behind all of it has helped Alice overcome personal struggles with eating disorders which she’s battled for over eight years. “I at all times had a extremely negative relationship with food. So for me, this journey was not only nearly my work and what I used to be doing. I spent years being embarrassed, but unless people know my story, they aren’t going to know my work. It was a giant a part of my life, nevertheless it’s not in charge of my life now,” she says.

By collecting sweat and turning it into crystals, Alice is stirring a conversation on taboo misconceptions related to bodily fluids – considered repulsive by many. “Sweat is something that everybody understands. It’s not decided by a gender, race, or someone’s wealth. It’s something that everybody experiences,” she says. Reflecting on her own work Alice says, “Aesthetically it’s beautiful, but what’s more beautiful is the science behind it. Without working with the people at Imperial, I might have never achieved that.”

Alice’s first solo exhibition Sweat debuted at Athens’s 2018 Biennale, where she has been invited by the Onassis Cultural Center to undertake a one-year fellowship programme. In the longer term Alice hopes to proceed working on her research without the business pressures of working within the industry: “It’s my interest. It’s not only crystals, but in addition what else bodily fluids can turn into.  Perhaps that’s in fragrance and the way it reacts in people. All kind of weird things like that. It’s not about making something latest, nevertheless it’s about changing the minds of everyone.”