I have found a recurring link through other performances and works I have researched for my project: An idea that mushrooms represent something to do with natural growth and being, connecting us as people and to the earth. This isn’t specifically in connection to the use of psychedelic mushrooms which are commonly discussed in relation with their supposed ability to connect people with nature. Mushrooms are being discussed in work in relation to current issues of sustainability, the destruction and creation of our natural world and our public performances in shared spaces. This connection may seem vague however I think it is an interesting way to consider representing my project’s aims. Mushrooms are connected to growth and relate to the debates I am exploring about creative growth as well as the natural element which relates to the drug or herb debate.
In 2018 YAO LIAO organised “BY MUSHROOMS”
The mushroom head project which explored performance in public spaces. “It embraces the context of the mundane and transcends it into a spectacle by portraying a surreal image of mushroom heads sitting on human bodies. It requires neither a stage nor a rehearsal; the project engages the public in the most unexpected way, walking the audience back into their daily life and celebrates the performativity of being.” http://www.yaoliao.co.uk/by-mushrooms.html
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins is a book by Anna Tsing, a Chinese American anthropologist. The book explores the matsutake mushrooms that can only grow in human-disturbed forests and the globalized commodity chains that exist around it.
https://www.academia.edu/40320405/The_Mushroom_at_the_End_of_the_World_-_Anna_Tsing
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178325/the-mushroom-at-the-end-of-the-world
Mushrooms exhibition in Sommerset house drew attention to mushrooms as some of the first cells to exist and grow in the world, something that is a part of all of us as we are a product of evolution from this plant.
Practice-based Research Project 