Going Tinder Fungal, 2022 – visual artist performer researcher

Exhibition @ Wunderkammer – Naturalia/ Artificialia – Stuttgart/ Bad Cannstatt, August 20 – October 24, 2022

WORK: Video, Text Texture, Drawing Prints, (Dead)Wood, Fruiting Bodies of Fomes fomentarius.

Going Tinder Fungal presents works from artistic research on the tinder fungus (lat. Fomes fomentarius), which concedes the non-human world of fungi its own perspective. Art and nature no longer form a hierarchical dichotomy, but intra-act, entangle, and animate each other.

The tree sponge itself is in the centre, not its use by humans since 5000 years or its function in the decomposition of wood. Going Tinder Fungal focuses on the bodies of the tinder fungus, their vegetative diversity and association with micro-organisms and (dead) wood. The installation reveals kind of the fungus’ own myco-cosmology.

*What‘s it like to be a mushroom‘s spore?* A text texture vibrates in neon yellow, the shimmering colour connects to the spirits of the spores who tell their story. It was captured by listening during a ritual in pleine air in summer. The words emerge poetic and sound like a sing sang. The font is based on a rectangle transformed by curves. It only exists as cut outs, irregularly sticking on the wall. The letters are readably for a human eye, though they seem alien somehow. The text texture wanders around the fruiting bodies of tinder fungus, the dead wood and the video of the tinder fungus’ bodies and associations. The spores travel in open air and thus with all breathing beings, likewise does their story here, when the visitors take the print away and respire the spirit reading the text.

“Wunderkammer Naturalia / Artificialia refers to the Cabinets of Curiosities or Wonder Collections which emerged in 14th century Europe. These collections gathered wonders from around the world, uniting objects belonging to the fields of both art and craft, including found items and manmade artefacts. These rarities were exhibited to amaze the spectator, simultaneously demonstrating individual power and wealth.
As a precursor of contemporary museum presentation, the roots of modern exhibiting can be found in these collections. Wunderkammer Naturalia / Artificialia is an attempt to critically question the ethnographical histories surrounding practices of collection which pertain to a complex colonial legacy of theft and oppression.
Simultaneously, Wunderkammer Naturalia / Artificialia is interested in challenging the current standards and hierarchies of curation, which determine what is considered ‘worthy of exhibition’. Wunderkammer Naturalia / Artificialia is housed in the four shop windows of the former “Betten Fischer” (bedding house), thus separately from pre-established cultural hubs, aiming to bring
contemporary art into the public space.”

Jan Nicola Angermann, Curator