Cosmic photographs of kitchen mould from Nikita Teryoshin and Max Slobodda

Losing Tupperware and dishes to mould is a pitfall of a lazily led modern life. But photographers Nikita Teryoshin and Max Slobodda have captured the beauty in these clusters of fungal growth in their ongoing series, Küchendienst, German for “kitchen patrol.”

For the last year the pair has documented the contents of their kitchen in all its festering glory from furry pasta pots to rusting cheese graters. The photographs are like huge, celestial landscapes full of alien amalgamations and cosmic spills. 

Nikita and Max started the series by accident: “We were searching for a pot to make soup and found it on the balcony. It was blue, yellow and sweating,” they explain. “We were fascinated by the appearance and took some photographs. We decided to continue our documentation of things that once used to disgust us.”

It’s the repulsive beginnings of these photographs that make the series so mesmerising and disgusting at the same time. But look beyond the lack of hygiene and oozing spores and a whole new universe can be discovered.