tinyMONDAY: »Mutations in Urban Development: Fungi as a Societal Agents and Generators of Ideas«

KfW Stiftung collaborates with the initiative tinyBE. living in a sculpture and contributes in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude to the programme with the conception of a tinyMONDAY. Within this framework, observations from the discursive program of Mutations will be further developed.

With the title Mutations in Urban Development: Fungi as a Societal Agents and Generators of Ideas, Maxwell Mutanda (designer, scientist and artist/Zimbabwe, and fellow of the thematic residency Mutations at Akademie Schloss Solitude) will discuss with Prof. Dr. Vera Meyer (biotechnologist and artist, TU Berlin) and Prof. Sven Pfeiffer (architect and designer, HS Bochum) from MY-CO-X:

The potential of fungi is widely underestimated – as uncontrollable collaborators, they provide highly developed structures and thus open up practical and theoretical spaces for new conceptions. In fungal biotechnology, they have become research objects for sustainable building materials and at the same time help shape artistic experiments. What is the significance of fungi as a source of ideas for a sustainable and at the same time innovative future? And what perspectives do artistic impulses offer on scientific questions?

A conversation on the multifaceted significance of fungi, in which experts from art, architecture, biodiversity and science meet.

tinyBE
Starting point for the conversation is the habitable sculpture MY-CO Space, which was constructed from a new type of building material based on fungal cultures and will be installed in Metzlerpark in Frankfurt am Main from 26 June to 26 September 2021. The habitable sculpture designed by the MY-CO-X collective questions what and how humans can learn from fungal cultures, networks, and architects. The interdisciplinary collaboration makes possible an artistic-scientific examination of the future societal importance of fungi (Lat. mycota) for the creation of places and spaces. For those who are interested, it is possible to book an overnight accommodation or a short stay in the sculpture. You can find more information here.

Maxwell Mutanda is a multidisciplinary researcher, visual artist and designer who uses meticulously detailed collages and architectural practice to create sustainable participatory design. He is a co-founder of the design research firm Studio [D] Tale which explores social and environmental issues across disciplines including architecture, urban transit, migration and product innovation.  maxwellmutanda.com

The artist collective MY-CO-X, founded by Prof. Dr. Vera Meyer (TU Berlin) and Prof. Sven Pfeiffer (HS Bochum), has been working together since 2020. The biotechnologist and the architect – along with eight other artists, fungal biotechnologists, and designers – create works that bring scientific and biotechnological research together with art- and design-based experiments. The collective acts as a constructive and critical provider of ideas and communicator of scientific questions in the field of art. Flora, fauna, and funga constitute the most advanced organisms on our planet – form and define them. Fungi as the active agents of humans together with plants could have future applications as a sustainable raw materials for use in both art and everyday life.