Mycelium Ring// Shilla 2023
All Things Are Delicately Interconnected: Mycelium Ring
“The project is about life, entanglement, symbiosis, regrowth, hope, and creating a new ecosystem from death matter. I chose to entangle my fairy ring of mycelium into a tree struck by lightning as a metaphor for regrowth from death and communication with the mythical realm. Firstly, the mycelium works as a decomposer for the decaying matter (Matsutake Mushroom is the first living being born after Hiroshima). In the worst scenarios, the mycelium is returning stronger and helping to create life, starting a new ecosystem.
"The fungus is an organ of the plant, and the plant, in some sense, is an organ of the fungus", merged into each other. The mycelium is the binder of the soil. The trees and the plants communicate with each other through an underground net, sharing nutrients, sugars, and information.
The installation and projection date was June 23, ‘noaptea ielelor.’ The ‘iele’ are feminine mythical creatures in Romanian mythology. They are believed to live in the sky, in forests, caves, rivers, and on isolated mountain cliffs. They mostly appear at night by moonlight as dancing Horas in secluded areas. ‘Ielele’ appear to be incorporeal in almost all these instances. The place where they had danced would remain carbonized, with the grass incapable of growing on the trodden ground and the leaves of the surrounding trees scorched. Later, when grass would finally grow, it would have a red or dark-green color, and the animals would not eat it; instead, mushrooms would thrive on it.”
