What is mycelium fungi and what worlds can we create together?
12-16-2021 / 04-18-2022
Offit Gallery / the Gottesman Libraries
at Teachers College, Columbia University
In times of ecological unraveling, Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations in Creativity Beyond Human looks into biodesign as a creative space to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature. The exhibition presents an array of material explorations in shape, texture, and color resulting from an entanglement with mycelium (the underground networks of mushrooms), technologies, bioplastics, waste, and other materials.
Each piece was grown by and with mycelium. This snow white and nearly microscopic organism fuses organic matter which can be casted in molds to produce sculptural shapes and textures. Color is obtained by aging the organism, through laser engraving, or by adding layers of bioplastic.
By blurring the boundaries between the practices of making and growing we are invited to interrogate sharp distinctions and hierarchies between humans and non-humans, culture and nature, artificial and organic.
I examine the ways in which all material bodies are intertwined and constantly giving form to each other through pressure, friction, breath, growth, decay and ongoing material transformations by which all forms emerge.
Interspecies creativity describes the form-giving processes that occur within multispecies and multimattered assemblages.
Interspecies creative encounters are places for dialogic and productive friction that acknowledges each other’s presence and shared vulnerability in hybrid nature-culture worlds.
The Gottesman Libraries
Teachers college, columbia u.
This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Myers Fund at Gottesman Libraries. The exhibition is part of the artist’s dissertation research developed with the thoughtful advice of Dr. Nathan Holbert; and the creative collaboration of Snow Day Learning Lab members Maria Lopez-Delgado, Ayse Unal, Uttarika Shetty, Yuxi Huang, Blake Danzing, and multiple more-than-human creatures. The exhibit was produced in collaboration with Trisha Barton.
Isabel Correa
designer.
Isabel’s practice focuses on understanding creativity particularly in education, and involves the development and study of playful tools and practices for children to make sense of the world around them and build alternative worlds. Working at the intersection of design, learning sciences, and biology her dissertation explores creativity across species through the development of biodesign practices that invite learners to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature.