More-Than Friends (2023)

an exploration of ecological kinship

Produced for display at IM-PERMANENT as part of NGV Melbourne Design Week 2023, More-Than Friends paired living mycelium with audio and projected text to create a space to for viewers to personally engage with living mycelia. Audio produced by Perry Weinstock.

The 19th century saw inner-north Melbourne buzzing with industry; mines, factories and landfill sites. What were once vibrant ecologies rapidly declined. As the city began to grow, so did industry, spreading further out and leaving behind a trail of damaged ecologies. This is where we’ve built our homes. More-Than Friends is an insight into experiments in the soil-based production of mycelium materials.

Part of a larger research project into the relational nature of living-materials, More-Than Friends explores a reality where human-fungi dialogues are commonplace, and we understand and act on the respective roles that each plays in the other’s life.

Bringing the lab back to earth, this piece explores the ability to repair local soil while producing mycelium artefact for human use. Mineralising heavy metal content in soil, Australian Reishi (Ganoderma steyaertanum) has the capacity to bring life back to the infertile wastelands left behind by human influence.