I’m in a white-walled exhibition space at 11:15 on one of the hottest days in recorded history, gazing at a domed structure hung from the ceiling.
The dome has chubby curves and uneven slopes, is lacquered matte black, and is shaped like a cross between a gigantic eco-chic lampshade and a fifth-grade volcano diorama. A little table, nearly a stool, constructed of the same amorphous material, is placed below. The table has a brass attachment that vaguely resembles a guitar but is actually a duplicate of the 17th-century microscope created by Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microscopy, as the next panel informs me.
The human race started to wonder how it fit into the natural world in the midst of a pandemic, on the verge of an irreversible climate calamity, and in the early, exciting decades of a biotech revolution. For a very long time, scientists thought that existence was a contest that mankind had to win. However, as biologists gained more understanding of biological systems, it was clear that interdependence was essential to comprehending life on Earth.
This is Museum of Symbiosis, an optimistic glimpse into the future of humanity made possible by biotechnology and a part art installation (or “immersive audio experience,” as the panel put it). In partnership with Lesley Lokko, a Ghanaian-Scottish professor, architect, and prolific author who also happens to be the Biennale’s first Black curator, it will be on display in the main pavilion of the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture. This year’s theme, “Laboratory of the Future,” puts Africa in the limelight as the world’s oldest and youngest continent, with 70% of the current sub-Saharan population under the age of 30. Among the 89 participants in the main Biennale pavilion, 50 are African or members of the African diaspora. Decolonization and decarbonization are related subthemes that serve as relevant catalysts in a
Faber Futures, a biodesign studio based in London, created the Museum of Symbiosis, and Mogu, an Italian biofabrication firm, produced it. Mogu created a full-length “mushroom leather” suit for the fashion brand Balenciaga that cost €9,000 ($9,814). He also has an interior design business that uses flooring and acoustic panels made from fungi. The term “mushroom leather” is a bit misleading. The substance is mycelium, a subterranean fungus body that grows underground in interwoven, substrate-tangled threads before blossoming above ground to form mushrooms, which serve as the organism’s reproductive organs. Mycelium threads are the forest floor’s recyclers, turning trash into resources and aiding the movement of carbon and other nutrients between trees, as well as possibly even inter-plant communication. German forester Peter Wohlleben’s whimsical nickname for this process sums it up best:
Living buildings and synthetic skin
Mycelium is already being sold or developed as a biodegradable alternative for a variety of products, including artificial skin used in wound healing, polymers made from petroleum, like Styrofoam, and even organically decaying coffins and barracks for the armed forces. And that’s only the start. Mycelium is being trained to break down used diapers and cigarette butts. It has been suggested that it might be utilized to develop living structures with the ability to control their own lighting systems as well as space communities.
According to the biologist Merlin Sheldrake, “Fungi are veteran survivors of ecological disruption,” in his book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures. They work cooperatively and with imagination. Are there ways we may collaborate with fungi to help us adapt, given that human activity threatens much of Earth’s life?
Beyond these futuristic-sounding advancements, the Museum of Symbiosis proposes biodesign as a paradigm shift — a method to decolonize science and give up the resource-sucking, profit-seeking approach that has largely characterized humankind’s recent impact on the planet. Even though some scientists have disputed this idea, the mycorrhizal network offers an altruistic counterargument to the Darwinian idea of “survival of the fittest,” in which fungus and trees live in symbiosis and take care of their weaker kin. Plant ecologist Kathryn Finn has claimed that the forest floor is a scene of intense competition. “Trees are not people, and forests do not represent human families.” You might view the rise of biotech as the beginning of a new era after hearing its evangelists.
