Living Mycelial Clothing as A Multispecies Habitat Volume 3 - Issue 2

Carol Padberg*

• Program Director, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, USA

Received:April 01, 2019;   Published: April 08, 2019

*Corresponding author:Carol Padberg, Hartford Art School, Interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts, University of Hartford, USA

DOI: 10.32474/LTTFD.2019.03.000160

Abstract PDF

Components of Written Piece

a) Illustrated description of a fashion-art hybrid methodology. This article will begin with a descriptive text which will summarize my art practice. Through a process of backyard regeneration, I create textile fashions that function as a mushroom and microbial habitat. In a modest urban lot I cultivate the soil; grow a dye garden; dye local animal and plant fibers; and weave broadcloth clothing that hosts living mushrooms and companion species of microbes. Upon wearing this clothing, my body heat catalyzes growth within the mycelial weave, which brings its aroma to my everyday actions including work, shopping at the supermarket, walks, showering, sleeping and more. Once the mushrooms are fully fruited and beginning to desiccate, I return the textiles to the backyard where they rejoin the soil biome and continue to decay and provide nourishment for my kitchen garden. Throughout this process the mushrooms/substrate organisms and my microbiome share spores, exchange microbes, and digest each other as our many bodies provide mutual heat and moisture. My inherent multiplicity (humans have more non-human DNA than human DNA) becomes more palpable to myself and others when I wear this clothing that encourages mycelial and textile fibers to join, fuse and transform through this process of mutual being and making.

b) Brief overview of how this methodology relates to scholarship within the Posthumanities. Posthuman narrative constructs such as “intra-actions” and the “thick present” [1]; “relating in significant otherness” and “making kin” [2]. and “allowing the land to dream through you” as a fraying of individuality [3]. are explored as fibers join, fuse and rot through this process of mutual being and making. I propose the term Lateral Practices to establish the value of small daily actions of multispecies relating. I suggest that although this scale and strategy of action is often overlooked and undervalued, it has the potential to synthesize disparate multispecies approaches such as pleasure activism [4]. and ecosexuality (Sprinkle and Stephens) with pragmatic concepts of care [3,5,6]. ecological education [7,8]. and multispecies collective action [5,9]. Instead of asking artists, cultural producers and eco-designers “But, how does it scale up?” I propose the better query for assessment is “And, how does it scale laterally?” Lateral iterations of relatedness can lead to accessible, engaged narrative and educational spaces. These spaces may be understood as low-stakes sites where we can unlearn the habits of individualism, process grief and anger, practice greater interspecies awareness, employ critical hope, and create the daily patterns of care needed in these troubled times [6,7,10].

c) Concise extension of this methodology trends in contemporary fashion in Scandinavia. I would develop a brief overview of two eco-textile designers in Scandinavia that would connect my artistic practice to designers who are functioning within the commercial landscape of the Nordic fashion industries [11].

Sample Photographs

All photographs will be provided by artist. Additional works including documentation of the artist wearing new mycelial clothing in public settings will be available, as will documentation of the urban backyard studio and selections showing the ‘cradle to grave’ material process. The artist invites suggestions from the editors and book designers as to the selection and number of photographs used (Figures 1-6).

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1. Barad K (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
2. Haraway D (2016) Staying with the Trouble, Making Kin in the Chuthulucene.
3. Andreotti, V (2011) ‘(Towards) Decoloniality and Diversality in Global Citizenship Education’. The Political Economy of Global Citizenship Education 9(3-4): 381-397.
4. Brown a m (2019) Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. AK Press, Edinburgh, Chico.
5. Bird Rose D (2017) Shimmer: When all you Love is Being Trashed’ In eds. A Tsing, H Swanson, E Gan, N Bubandt (Eds.), Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Minneapolis.
6. Hicks D (2014) Educating for Hope in Troubled Times, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books.
7. Facer K (2019) ‘Storytelling in Troubled Times: What is the Role for Educators in the Deep Crises of the 21st century?’. Literacy 53(1): 3-13.
8. Haraway D (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness.
9. Haraway D (2016) Staying with the Trouble, Making Kin in the Chuthulucene.
10. Ogden L Hall B, Tanita K (2013) in ‘Animals, Plants, People and Things: A Review of Multispecies Ethnography’ 4(1).
11. Ojala M (2016) ‘Hope and Anticipation in Education for a Sustainable Future’. Futures 94: 76-84.