Let's Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts

Synopsis

The enormous popular interest in fungi and mycelium speaks to their resonance as metaphors for new ways of thinking, new systems, and new behaviors. Let’s Become Fungal! takes inspiration from the fungal world and explores Indigenous practices from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia rooted in multispecies collaboration, symbiosis, alliances, non-monetary resource exchange, decentralization, bottom-up methods, and mutual dependency.

Each of the book’s twelve chapters offers a teaching drawn from the world of fungi, addressing collaboration, decoloniality, nonlinearity, toxicity, mobilization, biomimicry, death, and being nonbinary. The book considers how fungal ways of working and being might inspire artists, educators, designers, scientists, activists, gardeners, farmers, and others to rethink their relationships with one another and the more-than-human world.

About the Author

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez is a curator and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology, based in Mexico City. She has founded and directed international initiatives including the Green Art Lab Alliance, the Nature Research Department, the Van Eyck Food Lab, and the Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie.

Rommy González is the illustrator of Let’s Become Fungal!

Publisher

Valiz

Publication Date

October 24, 2023

Format

Paperback

Pages

336

Subjects

Art · Ecology · Fungi · Indigenous Knowledge · Feminism · Cultural Theory

ISBN

9789493246287