A curatorial project about our Upcoming Future.
Shaped by novel materials and processes relying on the fundamental role of fungal micro- organisms. A historical greenhouse, filled with projects envisioning novel advancements and potentially near futures, while re-imagining the way in which our domestic and social life will morph during the next decades.

FUNGAL FUTURES / Growing Domestic Bio – Landscapes is a curatorial project presenting the work of an international group of artists and designers who develop innovative materials, applications and narratives using mycelium, the rhizomic network of ‘fungal roots’.
The NWO project Mycelium Design (Jan.2014 – Dec.2015) enabled collaboration between Utrecht University (UU), Officina Corpuscoli (OC) and Stichting Mediamatic (MM). Through an open call, the partners invited artists and designers to participate in the project as part of the Myco Design Lab, located at Mediamatic.
Along the duration of the project, OC and UU developed a palette of materials by making use of natural variation, environmental growth conditions, and genetic modification. These materials were provided to the selected artists and designers, who explored their potential (qualities and opportunities) and provided Officina Corpuscoli (Maurizio Montalti) feedback about the way properties needed to be improved to meet requirements for a range of specific products and applications.
The projects on show as part of FUNGAL FUTURES have all been developed as part of innovative research processes that operate at the intersection of design and science. The creatives, working in direct consultation with scientists, have adopted and developed unorthodox novel methodologies and techniques, as part of their practice.
FUNGAL FUTURES presents work of designers and artists who were involved in the NWO project Mycelium Design, as well as projects of selected invited creatives working along the same principles.

The exhibition demonstrates the generation of a near future in which fungal organisms will be one of the main actors leading towards a responsible social development.
In the Oude Hortus in the Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht, a constellation of tangible visions has shown how working with living organisms and systems could lead to ground-breaking innovative outcomes affecting society and our ecosystem, while informing and impacting current existing paradigms, systems and networks.

More information about FUNGAL FUTURES and about the artists/projects on show, can be found on
FUNGAL FUTURES Website.

CREDITS:

Commissioned by:

Utrecht University / MICROBIOLOGY
(Prof. Han Wösten)

Curated / designed / produced / managed by:
Maurizio Montalti / OFFICINA CORPUSCOLI

Graphic design & illustrations by:
Francesco Zorzi / NO-ROCKET

Research:
Officina Corpuscoli, Utrecht University

Supported by:
NWO, STW, KF Hein Fonds, CNC Exotic Mushroom, Gemeente Utrecht, Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht, Universiteit Utrecht

Photography:
Officina Corpuscoli

• Biology
• Exhibition
• Fungi
• Future
• Materials
• Research