This session delves into tapestries of communication and transformation, where science meets story and decay becomes a form of creation. We’ll explore the sublime intelligence of fungal systems ~ those rooted, mycelial communities that hold lessons in cooperation, restoration and adaptability as well as looking at the forests and tree habitats that nurture such ways of being.
Beneath our feet lies a hidden web of life ~ mycorrhizal networks that weave forests into communities, trading nutrients, warning of danger, and sustaining interspecies collaboration. At the same time, fungi are adapting to human excess, evolving to break down plastics and pollution, quietly rewriting our assumptions about waste, resilience, and survival.
Jana Nicole visual artist known for her intricate mixed media works, maps out speculative ecosystems, blending biology, mythology and material culture to imagine what our entangled futures with fungi ~ and plastics ~ might look like.
Maria Westerberg, eco-artist and storyteller, works with found forest materials and fungi to explore the blurred boundary between humour, grief and nature’s wisdom, reminding us that the forest is alive with both memory and mischief.
Prof. Vincent Gauci is a Birmingham Professorial Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. He is interested in the biogeochemistry of carbon-dense terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, peatlands, and forested wetlands and peatlands. Our guests bring diverse lenses to this living subject:
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