29 November 2022 - 26 February 2023

Azkuna Zentroa

Bilbao, Pais Vasco

 

9 June - 28 November 2021

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

Barcelona, Spain

​

Through the Fungi experience, we can question the concept of 'individual' because of the symbiotic relationships we find. The mycelial body of the fungus generates a powerful filamentous network of transformation, creating new interspecies structures and dynamic communicational and nutritional systems. In these relationships, the parts were able to make a life in places where none could have survived alone. So where does one species begin and where does the other end? 

 

This idea of symbiosis is opposed to the predominant currents in the evolutionary thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, according to which the strongest live to fight another day. With the awakening of the symbiotic hypothesis, evolution could no longer be thought of solely in terms of competition and individualism, where it was concluded that species arose by diverging from one another. However, in the Fungi symbiosis, we see convergence.

 

The exhibition Les Micobiontes is composed of two parts; the first is the posters of the Museo del Hongo, which represent a symbiotic work between art and science around the Fungi Kingdom. Throughout its more than four years of itinerancy, the Museo del Hongo has appeared and disappeared in different contexts, for which a unique graphic piece is generated. 

 

On the other hand, various specimens are exhibited that refer to symbiotic relationships developed between a fungus, or 'mycobiont' and one or more organisms capable of providing it with sugar, a 'photobiont' without distinction of Kingdom; terrestrial or aquatic plants, as well as photosynthetic bacteria. Together, mycobiont and photobiont grow visibly in the bodies of mycorrhizae and lichens.

​
 

Museo del Hongo Apparitions

 

The relationship of humans with Fungi is not new, it dates back to prehistoric times. Yet, the Kingdom Fungi was postulated only in 1969 as an independent living Kingdom by ecologist Robert H. Whittaker. The current gap in mycological research - only 5% of the world's fungal biodiversity is known - is also related to the fragmented and critical context in which we find ourselves as an eco-society, since many of the solutions we can find in this Kingdom are practical, while others are philosophical.

 

Here, is a visual synthesis of the work of an interdisciplinary group of people who put themselves at the disposal of Fungi, to do justice to this Kingdom marginalized throughout the history of biology.

 

Fungi and plants that hug each other

 

Mycorrhizal fungi connect with plant roots, enveloping them and passing through their cell walls. They provide water and nutrients from the soil that the plant cannot obtain on its own, and in return, they obtain sugars from photosynthesis. Mycorrhizae, -mykós- fungus and -riza- root in Greek, are very ancient symbiotic relationships, that evolved millions of years ago to help early plants establish themselves in the soil and grow despite nutrient-poor environments.

 

Different fungi associate with different plants forming four main types of mycorrhizae. In the installation, different specimens are presented that represent in themselves concrete mechanisms of interspecies cooperation.

​
 

Lichenization, now

 

In lichens, the mycelial body of the fungus is associated with other microorganisms of one or more Kingdoms of Life, such as cyanobacteria, algae, or both, forming new micro-ecosystems of great importance, reaching today to recognize more than five species in a single lichen. Lichens extract minerals from rock in a twofold process of weathering. First, they break surfaces by the force of their growth. Second, they deploy an arsenal of chemicals that dissolve and fix the minerals to digest the rock. The ability of lichens to erode rock makes them a geological force. When lichens die and decompose, they give rise to the first soils of new ecosystems. They are how the mass of inanimate material within the rocks can cross over into the metabolic cycles of the living. 

 

In the installation, examples of the five lichen biotypes are presented: crustose, foliose, fruticose, squamulose, and dimorphic. Each varies the arrangement or design of the fungal filaments of the fungus, unicellular algae, and cyanobacteria. These are the primitive designs that have created the world as we know it.

 

References

• M. Sheldrake (2020) “Entangled Life: How Fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our future”. Penguin Random House, Nueva York, Estados Unidos de América.

• D. L. Hawksworth,  L. M. Suz, P. W. Kooij, K. Liimatainen, T. Prescott, L. Davies, and E. Gaya (2019) “Fungarium”.Big Picture Press, Londres, Reino Unido.

• Kew Gardens (2018) “State Of the World’s Fungi”. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Londres, Inglaterra. 

• M. Phillips (2017) “Mycorrhizal Planet: How symbiotic Fungi work with roots to support plant health and build soil fertility”. Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, Estados Unidos de América.