Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Basse Stittgen has used blood leftover from the meat industry to create a collection of small objects.
After discovering that slaughterhouses discard billions of litres of animal blood every year, Stittgen wanted to explore whether this liquid could instead be used to manufacture a new, environmentally friendly material.
"Blood as a material can mean so many things ? it can mean life, it can mean death ? but there is no material notion towards blood," the designer told Dezeen. "That is what I'm exploring. Can it actually be a material""

The aim of Stittgen's project, called Blood Related, was to identify the stigma attached to blood, and then work out how to overcome it.
"We all have an idea about what blood means to us, what history we have with it and what its purpose might be," he said. "The idea to have objects made out of blood is therefore much more repelling than the idea to eat animal meat, wear animal skin and even put stuffed animals as decoration up on a wall. This aversion comes not only from disgust but also from habit and tradition."

The objects Stittgen has created are 100 per cent blood, yet they are black and solid.
The designer dried the blood out and created a powder ? a process that is commonly used in the production of black pudding. This powder can then be heated and pressed, and the glue properties of the albumin protein allow act as a binding agent.
"The materia...