MUSHrooms as Living Systems: Teaching and Making Art through More-than-human Ecologies

In this presentation, MUSHroom Collective members describe the making of the MUSHroom : 2^nd Iteration. The MUSHroom is best described as a living sculpture, a transdisciplinary curriculum, and a source of artistic inquiry that emerged through a multi-year collaboration (2025-2026) involving mushrooms, university faculty and students and farmer/proprietor of the Georgia Museum and Supply Company.

Participatory in nature, the MUSHroom, a sustainably built structure is comprised of poplar, paper, and mushrooms which hang in wooden boxes throughout a dome-like structure. The installation invites visitors to experience all stages of mushrooms’ life cycle from pinning to harvest and composting in an immersive setting which includes sound.

The MUSHroom Collective suggests that cultivating creative, critical and ethical relationships with more-than-than species is essential for better understanding ecologies, magnifying care and revealing new potentials for sustaining a healthy planet.

The talk will conclude with the harvesting of mushrooms and the composting of substrates.

Martijn van Wagtendonk, Associate Professor of Sculpture

Lynn Sanders-Bustle, Associate Professor of Art Education

With

Michael Andrews, Certified Mushroom Forager and Owner/Operator of Georgia Mushroom and Supply Company

Kevin Kirsche, Director of the Office of Sustainability

Erin Moore, Lecturer, Fabric Design, Lamar Dodd School of Art

Jon Vogt, Studio Manager, Lamar Dodd School of Art