THE MYCELIAL GAZE

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Fungi challenge me to explore the unknown, to look beneath the surface, to adapt, to respect imperfections, to slow down and always seek an alternative path. Through the fungal lens I tend to see the world in its innumerable connections.  

Originating in space, present at the very dawn of life on Earth, fungi know how to interact with their environment. As recyclers they are experts in sustainability, transforming fossil fuels without generating waste. As parasites with metamorphic capacities, they engender diseases that are central to the health of all other living beings. And by communicating symbiotically with plants to survive, fungi inspire me to think about my own relationships differently.

At the heart of this project is my intention to create an awareness of the unique skills and qualities that the study of mycology can offer. Whether it‘s the meaning of a deep experience of nature, cultivating healthy food, revitalizing land or making connections between people, exploring the capacities of fungi allows me to experience the fertility of life and death. From traditional gathering to mushroom cultivation, from art to activism, from citizen science to the hard sciences: a rapidly expanding myco-culture is myceliating around the world.

To me, making a film is first of all an experience of sharing. I’m looking for complicity during those unique encounters. My ethos as an artist is largely influenced by ideas found in deep ecology in which all beings are seen as having an inherent value, awareness, and intelligence. Sharing intelligence might be the only way to create a future when living within the endangered ecosystems of our time in which man-made disturbances exceed all other geological forces. Our era is one of unprecedented change and during this Great Acceleration, it will become increasingly necessary for all of us to move towards the fringes. What will we choose to do at those edges?

THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS offers a vision of interconnectivity and collaboration. Patterns of resilience, self-reliance, stewardship and healing are infused throughout the conversations of this film. The narrative explores through a personal journey of thoughts, a kind of rhetorical mycelium, a fungi-inspired perception where ideas become spores as the fungus transforms that which is concrete. In contemplating the fungal consciousness I seek to celebrate a joyful relationship to the natural world.

Fungi have astonishing powers to change things very quickly.

And so do we.

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(inspired by Anna  Lowenhaupt Tsing, Maria Sabina, Silvia Plath, Peter McCoy and Radical Mycology, Geoffroy Grignon, Merlin Sheldrake, Paul Stamets, Terence McKenna and his family, Vanja Palmers and many other fungi enthousiasts along the way...)



 

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