Mushroom Kit I
2021
Pearl drums, mycelia, oyster mushrooms, wood chips
66.04 x 76.2 x 33.2 cm (26 x 30 x 13 inches)
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Mushroom Kit I (2021) is an ephemeral sculpture, and resulting digital inkjet prints of photographic documentation taken by Lenny Mullins. The sculpture consisted of three Pearl drums containing mycelia, oyster mushrooms, and pine wood chips. The fruiting mushrooms that are depicted protruding from the small holes in the drums were cultivated from "mushroom spawn" layered inside each of the wood chip-packed drums. The growing process occurred in the artist's temporary studio—a friend's garage—over several weeks during the summer of 2021.
Mushroom Kit I was first shown in a two-person exhibition at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, titled i want to be a seashell/i want to be a mold/i want to be a spirit (2021) with artist Lou Sheppard.
As a material metaphor, Mushroom Kit I ponders the relationship between cultural modes of expression (architecture and music) and the culture of living organisms (the human body and microbes). The work draws inspiration from Metabolism—an architectural movement born in 1960s Japan, known for its cohesive, modular buildings based on principles of organic growth and metabolic systems.
Mushroom Kit I is a sculptural analogy, a stand-in for both a biological and architectural vessel (body/building). It ponders how both affect and are affected by its collective inhabitants (human, fungi, etc.).