Mycelial networks do not manifest themselves in the spectacle of catastrophes, but instead bring about slow transformations out of sight. Therefore, they encourage us to redirect our attention to subtle activities that strategize underground, under our feet, in all the places where we are not looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The degradation function of mycelium has greatly inspired artistic representations in which mycelia and mushrooms are utilized as apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic motifs. Along these lines, artist, scenographer, and costume designer Johanna M\u00e5rtensson presents, in a series of six photographs titled Decor <\/em>(2009), the evolution of a miniature city made out of bread that gets slowly covered by a thin layer of mould. Affected by the mould, the buildings start to bend before collapsing in the last image. Accompanying this entropic progression, the ambience of the photographs gradually darkens, giving a gloomy aspect to the deserted city, reminiscent of post-apocalyptic scenes in which the vegetation grows wild and is no longer under human control. In the bread city, the growth of the mould appears as a destructive agent. It plays havoc with the urban landscape and demonstrates the supremacy of so-called natural time over time as counted by humans. This fatal vision emphasizes a linear process leading from order to disorder through a frontal view reminiscent of perishable motifs in vanitas<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"Johanna$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Johanna$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Johanna$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Johanna$
Johanna M\u00e5rtensson<\/strong>
D\u00e9cor<\/em>, 2019.
Photos: courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Johanna$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Johanna$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Mycelium is related, therefore, to the most revolting aspects of matter and its diminished forms, from compost to putrefaction. Just as we get rid of broken objects, we set aside, and even eliminate, ignoble materials that elicit disgust. Marshes, for example, were feared, avoided, or landscaped for a long time before being valued as reservoirs of biodiversity. The most repulsive places, forms, or states of things are often much more complex than what they are usually reduced to. The same applies to mycelium, which decomposes matter while also fundamentally being a living, growing organism. Taking this relationship into account leads us to adopt an alternative point of view, go outside of pre-established categories and imaginaries, and think based on what is ordinarily neglected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This ambivalent characteristic is particularly highlighted in Sara Manente, Deborah Robbiano, and S\u00e9bastien Tripod\u2019s evolving art installation RUINED<\/em> (2023\u201324). This work is a replica of an ancient column constructed out of blocks of organic substrate in which mycelium has spread, adhering to the given shape and creating compact modules that can be stacked. Over the course of the exhibition, fungal roots incited the growth of mushrooms, which altered the architectural form, distorting its contours by living organisms. The idea of ruin was suggested by the fragmentary aspect of the \u201cruined\u201d column, which also evoked the decline of ancient civilizations. The mycelium symbolically damaged the structure but also gave it life by serving as a link to the substrate, without which the structure would disintegrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The work proposes an organic vision of the ruin, which Manente considers \u201ca process, something that is in transition and might change our perspective on past, present, and future.\u201d^{1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 1 <\/a> - Sara Manente, \u201cA Conversation with Sara Manente,\u201d interview by Mathilde Villeneuve, BUDA<\/em>, 2024, accessible online.<\/span> In the same vein, the philosopher Sophie Lacroix has developed a critical function of the representation of ruins in a book titled Ruine<\/em> (2008). According to Lacroix, ruins elicit a feeling of loss, making us see an inevitable and intrinsic downfall in everything. She writes, \u201cThe ruin is a weakened form, an enfeebled life marked by loss, yet life all the same, authentic precisely because it has integrated the death inherent in all life.\u201d^{2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 2 <\/a> - Sophie Lacroix, Ruine<\/em> (Paris: La Villette, 2008), 32 (our translation).<\/span> Bearing this ambivalence within it, mycelium introduces this future end through its living presence in the work, whose composition is not governed by an opposition between order and disorder but is based, instead, on the complementarity of these two poles. Manente, Robbiano, and Tripod\u2019s installation defines its own equilibrium, maintained by the fungal fibres that connect life and death and combine natural and human works in a common construction. On the other hand, this construction is not made of marble, nor is it made of clay that can be moulded by the artist\u2019s hands and intentions. It morphs itself into a living organism and induces certain constraints and precautions that need to be taken in order for it to survive in the inhospitable exhibition space. This collaboration imposes a fundamentally unpredictable dimension that we can try to control without ever being able to eradicate it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Sara$
Sara Manente, Deborah Robbiano & S\u00e9bastien Tripod<\/strong>
RUINED<\/em>, 2023, installation view, far\u00ba festival et fabrique des arts vivants, Nyon, 2023.
Photo: Deborah Robbiano, courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The role of mycelium is not limited to decomposition. Through mycorrhizal symbiosis, it connects with plants and trees in order to help them absorb nutrients. In close relationship with other species, it establishes true vegetal communities as the mycologist and writer Paul Stamets has pointed out; he takes up the expression \u201cWood Wide Web,\u201d the internet of nature. By fighting the intrusion of pathogens, it also acts as an immune system. Stamets notes that mycelium protects \u201chabitats by nourishing a diverse succession of collaborating organisms that are continuously exchanging resources and information.\u201d ^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 3 <\/a> - Paul Stamets, \u201cThe Mycelium Network Connects Us All,\u201d Fungi Perfecti<\/em>, May 14, 2024, accessible online.<\/span> Coordinating in this way, the organisms create fertile zones linking mushrooms, plants, animals, and insects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inspired by this symbiotic potential, the artist C\u00f4me Di Meglio explores possible connections between human beings and their environment, particularly in his installation MycoTemple<\/em> (2021\u201323), a construction of mycelium blocks assembled not in a column but in a dome on a structure of sculpted wood. This highly symbolic architecture evokes both ancient and futurist dwellings. It defines an isolated space while remaining porous to environmental interferences due to the materials composing it. The work, funded by the R\u00e9gion Sud and the European Union as part of the Nature For City Life program, has been installed along a hiking trail. Like Manente, Robbiano, and Tripod\u2019s RUINED<\/em>, which presents the ruin as a fertile ground for mycological proliferation, MycoTemple<\/em> has a cyclical temporality. The organic biodegradable materials in a way promise the work\u2019s beneficial return to the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"C\u00f4me$
C\u00f4me Di Meglio<\/strong>
MycoTemple<\/em>, 2021-2023, installation view, Centre d\u2019arts plastiques Fernand L\u00e9ger, Port-de-Bouc, 2023.
Photo: Gian-Battista Lombardo, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Inspired by the inclination of mycelium to enter into symbiosis with what surrounds it, Di Meglio has imagined this shelter as a temple, a space for meditation, where human beings can consider or reconsider the place that they occupy in the order of life. This idea is transmitted particularly through the wooden frame onto which a frieze of intertwining creepers has been sculpted. The creepers symbolize the interwoven destinies and possible alliances between humans and plants subject to the same current conditions. Di Meglio focuses on the notion of dwelling through this architecture, which also evokes the real possibilities of mycelium and, more broadly, of plants as construction materials, as professors Thomas Vallas and Luc Courard have shown.^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - Thomas Vallas and Luc Courard, \u201cUsing Nature in Architecture: Building a Living House with Mycelium and Trees,\u201d Frontiers of Architectural Research<\/em> 6, no. 3 (September 2017): 318\u201328, accessible online.<\/span> He therefore helps us to imagine a future by making us reflect on the conditions of habitability, no longer bound by a cataclysmic end, for living in a future world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"C\u00f4me$
C\u00f4me Di Meglio<\/strong>
MycoTemple<\/em>, 2021-2023, installation views, Centre d\u2019arts plastiques Fernand L\u00e9ger, Port-de-Bouc, 2023.
Photos: Gian-Battista Lombardo, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"C\u00f4me$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
In all these works, mycelium appears not only as a means of artistic creation by being a material full of potential and constraints, but also as a source of inspiration through its function of decomposition, its symbiotic capacity, its branched model, its ability to adapt, and its possible uses in medicine and construction. It is also presented as a complex system of thought, a heuristic process that accommodates uncertainty, considers finitude and decomposition, and establishes multiple and unlikely connections in the same way as the philosopher Donna Haraway describes making \u201cunexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles.\u201d ^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble<\/em> (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 4.<\/span> This model of thought therefore leads us to think beyond categories and adopt a stance of humility within a world of invisible relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The prevailing narratives and imaginaries envisaging the future are influenced by a view, inherited from modernity, that sets the human as the sole engineer of the world. This view has been reinforced\u200a\u2014\u200awhile also being amply challenged\u200a\u2014\u200aby the notion of the Anthropocene, which elevates the human to the level of a geological force.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yet this idea can lead only to incomplete considerations that obliterate or eradicate contradictions, uncertainty, or non-human actions. Similarly, solutions to current crises, particularly climatic ones, appear only through the prism of our sphere of knowledge and mastery, which offers a future solely through technology. In contrast, working with mycelium seems to shape a paradigm that is not centred on human beings or limited to human understanding. This paradigm eschews compartmentalization and hierarchy by making room for chance and the more obscure and impenetrable aspects of things. It encourages us to reconsider history, imagine the future differently, and act in other ways in the present. In the \u201clittle post-apocalyptic tale\u201d titled Myc\u00e9lium<\/em>,^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - Youri Johnson, Myc\u00e9lium\u2009: petit conte post-apocalyptique<\/em> (Neuilly-l\u00e8s-Dijon: Le Murmure, 2021).<\/span> the writer Youri Johnson returns to this paradigm. Following a revelation, Johnson\u2019s protagonist begins to see the world through the prism of mushrooms. He describes how mycelium teaches him to see the connections between things in a story in which equilibrium, impulses, and disorder reign. Working with mycelium bears similar stories that describe the combination of decay and growth as well as the interferences and unions possible between humans and the natural world. They sketch a mycelial imagination that has the scent of rainforests and the warmth of compost, in which barriers exist only to be overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Closely associated with witches, mushrooms evoke a dark and mysterious world by growing in the secret shadows of forests. Sometimes edible, sometimes poisonous, they are fundamentally ambivalent and symbolize both putrefaction and regeneration. Mycelium, for its part, is a living organism composed of myriad branching threads and constitutes the vegetative part of a fungus that allows it to release its spores. It can sometimes be seen on the forest floor or in decaying wood. Generally, however, it is found underground in a vast network that can extend over kilometres in search of nutrients. Equally complex, mycelium decomposes dead animal, vegetal, and fungal materials in different ecosystems by secreting enzymes that create a natural fertilizer for the surrounding flora.<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":269727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882],"tags":[],"numeros":[7549],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[7559],"artistes":[7583,7627,7613,7611,7633],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[],"class_list":["post-269736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post","numeros-115-decay","auteurs-emmanuel-leriche-en","artistes-come-di-meglio-en","artistes-deborah-robbiano-en","artistes-johanna-martensson-en","artistes-sara-manente-en","artistes-sebastien-tripod-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269736"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269746,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269736\/revisions\/269746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=269736"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=269736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}