The Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam hosts a captivating exhibition that delves into the unsettling yet mesmerising world of fungi. “Fungi: Anarchist Designers” takes visitors on a Dantean journey through the many circles of fungal hell, showcasing their preternatural capacity to reproduce, spread, evolve and annihilate.
Curated by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and architect Feifei Zhou, the exhibition challenges the notion of fungi as passive building materials or products. Instead, it highlights their role as “co-designers of the world,” outwitting and bending it to their will.
From the sea to the stratosphere, the domain of fungi is vast, encompassing over two million organisms, from microscopic yeasts and moulds to psychotropic mushrooms and lethal toxins. The exhibition features installations, films and soundscapes that convey the terrifying ubiquity and resilience of these ancient lifeforms.
One striking example is a timelapse film of the aptly named “stinkhorn” mushroom, which burgeons from a fleshy phallus into a perforated umbrella, emitting the smell of rotting flesh to attract flies that feast on it and disperse its spores.
The exhibition also explores how fungi thrive on human venality and shortsightedness. Monoculture forests and crop plantations, cultivated for profit, provide ample “grist to their mill,” as the curator’s state. A multimedia installation by forest pathologist Matteo Garbelotto and artist Kyriaki Goni, titled “We Shall by Morning, Inherit the Earth,” crystallises the balefully destructive impact of fungi like Heterobasidion root rot.
But the exhibition also underscores the curious beauty that emerges from fungi’s nihilistic proclivities. Historic architectural drawings from the Nieuwe Instituut’s archive are shown mottled with fungal discolouration, while Japanese artist Hajime Imamura’s “mycelial sculptures” drape probingly across the ceiling.
Ultimately, “Fungi: Anarchist Designers” ensures that visitors will never look at a mushroom in the same way again. It is a riveting exploration of the more-than-human world, urging us to rethink our relationship with these ancient, resilient lifeforms that refuse to be bound by human standards of propriety. As Sylvia Plath’s ominous ode foretold, “Our foot’s in the door.”
The exhibition runs at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam until 8 August.