Multistorey mycelium
Year:
Multistory Mycelium is an exploration of what lies beneath the surface. Interacting with the exhibition space, Mads Juel and Emilie Bausager work together to identify different ways in which we can define the landscape around us. Organic matter, human-made structures and elements preserved for the future merge together weaving a muddy tapestry to inspect.
Juel and Bausager have woven their own tapestry of sorts by layering sound, film and sculpture into a total installation with several unending plots that can be experienced within the subterranean space of OK Corral. Sitting below ground, the viewer can experience a full wall projection of a looping film. An overlapping audio track suggests questions concerning our own relation to our landscape, how other organisms inhabit the same ground we do and what it is about this connectedness that matters.
As a conduit for information, how do we as artists present information that we gather and gain meaning from? Generally, researchers refrain from trying to humanise nature so as to be able to fully see how an organism (or mushroom) lives and grows without a biased attachment to certain behaviours. As artists we strive for a connection to what is around us, to understand the likenesses and differences. By delving into the mind of the mushroom, artist and researcher all at once we attempt to create an image within several overlapping stories. Each tangent creates a network of smaller narratives much like a mycelial root network that entwine together. By observing the fabric of what is underneath us, well hopefully gain a clear sight of ways we relate to the underland - and that to us.
Emilie Bausager and Mads Juel have been working as a duo since 2019 on context specific projects informed by posthuman theory and in relation to the specific location of their exhibitions. In their duo praxis they delve into the many questions and abutted concepts of land and their own relationship to this.
The exhibition is supported by Statens Kunstfond and Frederiksberg Kommune.
A special thanks to Bygaard for letting us film at their amazing farm at Refshaleøen and to Joshua Evans for sharing his incredible knowledge on living organisms. If you want to learn more about how mushrooms and Joshua’s research go to joshuadavidevans.com
text by Louise Steiwer
Installation view + stills from Film, 2022. 12:24 minutes on loop.
Video projector, speaker, digital pantone print on paper, aluminium shelf, digital print on fabric, foam, plywood, wheels.
Dimensions variable.
