FUNGI: Anarchist DesignersFUNGI: Anarchist Designers

Fungi are closely linked to the environmental damage inflicted by colonial and capitalist exploitation. The curators emphatically reject the idea of boundless growth based on exploitation, which is perpetuated by incorporating fungi into design and production processes. Consequently, this exhibition is not just another display of utensils or building blocks grown from fungal flakes. ‘Sustainable’ matte white or beige mycelium vases, lampshades and insulation panels do not do justice to the story that Tsing and Zhou want to tell.

Tsing and Zhou instead prefer to describe FUNGI: Anarchist Designers as an exhibition of ‘anti-design’. In this show, fungi are not passive building materials, but rather anarchic co-designers – unconscious and uncontrollable – of a world that can only exist through alliances between humans and other living things. The exhibition reveals how fungi manifest themselves at different scales, from sick frogs and the dishwasher in your kitchen, to hospital beds, termite mounds, the human digestive system, coffee, banana and conifer plantations, and the jungle.

Many of the artworks in this exhibition were created specifically for FUNGI. For this exhibition, artists have collaborated with anthropologists, infectious disease specialists, ecologists and amphibian experts in order to reinterpret their research and translate it into installations. Visitors embark on a diverse, multi-sensory journey through painting, sculpture, multimedia installations, poetry and sound art – often with an interactive component.

One example of this collaboration is an installation by ecologists Ivette Perfecto and Zachary Hajian-Forooshani and the artist Filipp Groubnov. Together, they mapped the spread of coffee rust – a fungus that thrives in industrial, monocultural coffee plantations – throughout Latin America. When humans try to ‘civilise’ a balanced ecosystem in order to maximise yield, the opposite effect quickly follows. A seemingly insignificant fungus can dismantle the whole system, causing the expected growth to quickly turn to rot.

Anthropologist Bettina Stoetzer, artist duo Berkveldt and artist-researcher Åsa Sonjasdotter demonstrate how fungi control the cycle of radioactivity. Why did radiation decline more slowly than expected following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster? Some fungi absorb radioactive substances from deep in the soil – including deer truffles, which are eaten by wild boars. As the boars’ roam, their droppings ensure that the radiation remains in circulation and poses a persistent threat.

In addition to these installations, you will see five collaborations between artists and scientists, three individual commissioned artworks, 11 loans, five manifestos, a poem, and a tree stump in the New Garden. And, of course, there will be plenty of fungi!

The exhibition also includes examples of archival documents that have been altered – or ‘redesigned’ – by fungi. For a heritage institution, fungi pose a constant potential threat. But could the controlled and well-documented ‘decay’ of historical drawings or photographs one day be a possibility?

Anthropologist Anna Tsing gained recognition far beyond her own field with her book The Mushroom at the End of the World. Considered an expert on the ecological, historical and cultural role of fungi, her work has inspired thinkers, makers, activists and designers over the past decade.

Feifei Zhou is a designer and the founder of the agency terriStories. It is her narrative approach to spatial design that determines the structure of this exhibition. Visitors pass through three rooms. Each one represents fungi in a different role and has its own atmosphere, representing a step in the visitor’s journey of awareness.

The overarching FUNGI scenography is the work of design duo Marloes and Wikke. Maud Vervenne and Jacob Hoving are responsible for the graphic identity.

The exhibition FUNGI: Anarchist Designers has been made possible in part thanks to contributions from the Cultuurfonds, the Mondriaan Fund, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Iona Foundation.