SYLIA presents “Metempsychosis”, mycelium exhibition and talks, on November 1st and 2nd 2024, Mollstr. 1, Berlin.
“Worms. Ants. Maggots. Beetles. Mushrooms. Death was almost the moment when life overflowed its cup. Death wasn’t the end of life. It was the end of the singular. The deer decayed out of its shape into explosive, generative plurality. One narrative diverged into four hundred narratives. If I feel myself, like the compost heap, beginning to melt, it means that I am also melting into another story. A bigger story. A wider cast of characters. Let me dance between ripe and rot. I don’t know what act in the play comes next. But I know what my prayer is. Make me bigger than an “I”. Make me good soil.” —Sophie Strand
In philosophy, metempsychosis (Greek: μετεμψύχωσις) refers to the transmigration of the soul—the life breath—especially its reincarnation after death. Yet only in the 18th and 19th century did scientists understand that our breath depends on the oxygen produced by plants’ photosynthesis; and only in the 20th did researchers understand how most plants’ survival depends on their mycorrhizal connections with mycelium. In more recent years, specific studies linking cognition and oxygen levels have finally gained traction: our very cognitive functions, our life breath as human beings, would not exist without the interdependent and transformative exchanges between non-human organisms. The transmigration, thus, has no clear beginning or end.
The group show updates the ancient concept of metempsychosis to open a new vantage point from which to (re)view our form of life. Using mycelium both as a symbol and a medium, the artists and designers explore and unearth its multi-layered meanings, as a metaphor of connection and of the interwoven process of decay and regeneration.
Producing ideas, materials, and objects with mycelium, what is referred today as mycofabrication, is the prime example of interspecies design and art: there’s no genius, a homo faber who creates ex-novo, from nothing. Instead mycofabrication highlights the collaboration with another organism, with its own needs and preferences, and how its ‘mind’ influences our own.
In this fungal-thinking feedback-loop approach, “Metempsychosis” showcases an interdisciplinary, intermodal and interspecies exhibition entangled in spirit. Each work transitions into another possibility—mycelium works as collective cooperative expressions, driven by the urge to heal our future collectively. The exhibition offers viewers alternative perspectives to materiality and knowledge production as practice, and invites them to explore the interconnectedness of life, the continuous cycle of transformation, and the regenerative power inherent in nature. Here, art is not just representational but is experienced as a living, evolving entity that transcends the human narrative, embracing the broader, more-than-human world.
The exhibition and talks aim at celebrating the intersection of art, design, science and ecology, and at exploring how the process of mycofabrication – using fungi as a tool for manufacturing – and multispecies design can reshape our perceptions, inspire new ways of thinking and reconnect us to the environment.
Metempsychosis, the idea of mind transmigration, serves as a metaphor for the transformative journey of creating with living mycelium, which not only serves as a medium but actively participates in the creative process.
Artists and designers on view in the group exhibition:
Augusto Calçada
Matteo Campulla
Markella Davu
Sharlene Durfey François
Helena Elston
Fade Out Label
Francesco Fossati
Paulina Heidlberger
Benjamin Janzen
Jan Klappenecker
Dóra Márföldi
Maria Kobylenko Ruzica Jovanovic
Yuliia Ovcharyk
Emma Patmore
Ivona Pelajić
Arezoo Ramezani
Xristina Sarli
Nicole Spit
Amy Toshizu Kanajikken
Alina Tofan
Matthildur Valfells
Alessandro Volpato
Karin Weissenbrunner
Caroline Wimmer
Frederic Zirbes
Speakers presenting during the talk series:
Dimitra Almpani-Lekka, Esther Betz und Ronja Kügow, Clara Sofia Fernández, Thordes Herbst, Melissa Ingaruca Moreno, Alve Lagercrantz, Natalija Miodragovic, Eda Özdemir, Julian Roth, Emma Sicher, Nora Wilhelm, Karin Weissenbrunner, Ingo Johannsen, Adrienne Goehler, Andrew Gennett, Alessandro Volpato, Giulio Perticari
Performances
Friday from 6 PM
- Amy Toshizu Kanajikken – Amy & her quiet experiments
Friday 7 PM
- Kombucha Performance, Benjamin Janzen
Friday 8 PM
- Maria Kobylenkox – FEELING FUNGAL
Saturday 6:30 PM
- Benjamin Janzen – Kombucha Performance
Saturday from 7 PM
- Laccaria Amethystina: Guardian of Fragments, Alina Tofan
- Alina Tofan – Laccaria Amethystina: Guardian of Fragments
Workshop – Saturday 2nd Nov. 12.30 – 16.30
Participants will learn how to:
- Isolate / domesticate a wild mushroom into malt-extract agar Petri dishes
- Produce mini-mycotretis blocks using plant-based substrate
- Upcycle wood furniture and reshape it using fungi
By Alessandro Volpato, Nora Wilhelm and Julian Roth
Talks – Saturday 2nd Nov. 17.00 – 18.30
- Andrew Gennet – Understanding Fungi
- Alessandro Volpato – Design with Fungi in communities
- Emma Sicher – Tempeh – A material-driven experimentation for eco-social relationalities
- Eda Özdemir – Upscaling Mycelium Composites for Architecture
- Dimitra Almpani-Lekka – More-than-human Membranes
- Natalija Miodragovic – Growing Architecture: Co-Designing with Fungi
- Esther Betz & Ronja Kügow – Decayed – was entsteht, wenn was vergeht
- Nora Wilhelm – Das Pilz-Kunst-Labor im Haus der Materialisierung
- Clara Sofia Fernandez – Soft matter- digital crafting with mycelium
- Alve Lagercrantz – Bioprinting kombucha
- Melissa Ingaruca – Endarken: creating darker futures with bioluminescent fungi
- Giulio Perticari – SYLIA
- Thordes Herbst – The curious tale of how I grew a Bioluminescent Mushroom in my closet
- Karin Weissenbrunner – Fungalgraphic discs
- Julian Roth – Who is growing whom?
- Ingo Johannsen – Myzel als Technischer Werkstoff
- Adrienne Goehler – Rebuilding with fungal composites
Films – 1st and 2nd of November from 9 PM