Fungi Town

Fungi Town / 2023 / Funded by Macedon Ranges Storm Recovery / Travelled to: Kyneton, Woodend, Riddels Creek, Lancefeild, Newham Primary School, Knox Fest at Feerntreee Gully Arboretum , Edenvale Community Farm, City of Yarra, FRL Festival, Blackwood Easter Carnival for Mooraboo Councill, Art for Social Change Exhibition at Incinerator Gallery

This artwork was developed with the belief that ‘art for social change’ needs to reach people (not just art gallery visitors). It is purposefully aesthetic and on wheels, so that it can travel and appeal to broad audiences. It was developed for the community of Macedon Shire who suffered damaging storms that brought down many large trees in towns and forests. Fungi Town is presented to the community as a way to shift the sense of loss for the old giants and replace fear of the forest with a sense of wonder. The hot pink caravan opens its doors to reveal a diorama of the forest floor where fungi is the star attraction. The wonderful array of colour, form, texture and function of mushrooms allows a reframing of the damaged forest as instead a banquet for fungi that will set to work recycling the lignin and cellulose into fertile soil. Drawing attention to the details on the forest floor is a way to lure those who have residual trauma back into their natural environments through the discovery of the ephemeral and somewhat magical appearance of mushrooms. I bring along fungi books, art making activities and enthusiasm to Fungi Town appearances. This life-form is having a moment right now and Fungi Town can be considered a proud bright bandwagon that helps share this new knowledge of the important symbiotic relationship with plants and their role as decomposers. Bringing audiences closer to understanding and appreciating the cycles and systems of our world is fundamentally important to me. I beliieve that humour and playfulness are a great way to reach people and this work does not shy away from being a joyful expression of the enchantment of fungi.