Essays Include:
1. 'The Purga Story' by Nigel Fechner, Senior Mycologist, Queensland Herbarium
2. 'Reciprocal Wonderlands' by Beth Jackson, Arts Curator, Artfully
1. 'The Purga Story' by Nigel Fechner, Senior Mycologist, Queensland Herbarium
2. 'Reciprocal Wonderlands' by Beth Jackson, Arts Curator, Artfully
'The Purga Story'
Essay by Nigel Fechner, Senior Mycologist, Queensland Herbarium
“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci’s exhortation to the reader to observe and to experience the world through one’s senses highlights the importance of connectedness, much the same way that ‘Unseen’ brings the hidden world of life in the soil into focus through a series of interactive, experiential displays integrating the conceptualization of art with the knowledge of science. Thus begins an exploratory journey into the arcane world of the soil, where synthesis, destruction and relentless biological warfare typifies the daily struggle for species’ survival.
This episode of ‘Survival’ takes place at Purga Nature Reserve, a relatively unseen but easily accessible jewel in Ipswich City Council’s conservation crown. Situated only 18 km from the heart of Ipswich, the plight of the endangered swamp tea-tree, Melaleuca irbyana, rests largely upon the preservation of the entire biotic community on this small parcel of land.
When asked to invoke imagery of a woodland or forest, it is to be expected that one envisages an environment which is filled with different kinds of trees and shrubs, a grassy understorey and inhabited by various birds, reptiles and mammals. After all, these elements constitute the easily observable component of the system – spatially dominant, but essentially functionally diminutive. What we see on the surface is the end result of the collective actions of an unfathomable array of tiny unseen organisms which interact with each other continuously, those interactions producing the conditions suitable for building the framework – the flora and fauna.
Within the confines of the soil, a complex network of roots, hyphae, minerals, organic matter, chemicals, invertebrates and micro-organisms are blended together in an immeasurable number of combinations, each and every participant playing a vital, stimulating role in regulating the uneasy harmony within the ecosystem.
‘Unseen’ focuses on just one of those contributors: the species cumulatively referred to as ectomycorrhizal fungi. As it happens, there are other types of mycorrhizal relationships, but the fact that these species of fungi produce fruiting bodies which are easily seen, and thus readily quantifiable, makes them well suited to observations by both artist and scientist alike, thus facilitating a synergy of investigation.
For their part, these particular fungi are ever present within the soil. They exist as a network of thread-like filaments known as hyphae, these forming the bulk of the organism’s structure. Such is the volume of these hyphae in the soil, laid end-on-end they would stretch for kilometre upon kilometre. This web of exploratory filaments simultaneously penetrates large distances into the soil as well as entering the roots of particular plants, thereby instigating a mutually beneficial relationship. Proliferation of hyphae throughout the substrate increases the effective surface area of the roots thus giving them greater access to organic compounds in the soil. As the roots have no means within-and-of themselves to acquire the necessary nutrients for growth from this material, the fungus comes into play. They produce a variety of chemicals which act to break down organic matter into smaller component chemical substances which the plant root can absorb and utilize.
So what is the benefit to the fungus? Whilst fungi can chemically break down organic matter - a mechanism for which plants have no faculty - they have no means of synthesising energy-producing compounds from the resultant molecules. The fungus harvests while the plant manufactures, and everyone shares in the produce. Such activity represents only one of the functions provided by the ectomycorrhizal partnership, the complexity of which cannot be expounded within the confines of a short essay.
Portrayal of the function and form of ectomycorrhizal interactions via artistic means provides a plethora of subject matter to be embraced by symbolic representations, interpretive dioramas, reconceptualization of hypotheses and the application of alternative perspectives. Herein we see the overlap with scientific endeavour.
From the artist’s perspective, Purga provides an endangered species of plant which is mycorrhizal in its requirements and therefore a workable explanation of biotic interactions can be presented with a minimum of resources. What is unique with this site, however, is the fact that a significantly sized tract of land supports only a single species of mycorrhizal plant – a monoculture, if you prefer. This simplifies the process of identifying the ‘host’ plant species with which all the observed mycorrhizal fungi species at the site are associated, a task which is no easy feat in a normal mixed forest scenario. From a scientific perspective, this accords an extraordinary set of circumstances. The dynamics of ectomycorrhizal relationships can be examined in terms of an isolated species of tree, without having to make allowances for interference from other competing tree species.
Preliminary soil analyses further demonstrated the uniqueness of the Purga Reserve. Predominately a structurally dynamic black clay with a very low content of organic matter, an extremely low pH just below the surface, and sporadic inundation by rain, this area represents a very harsh environment, but with surprisingly exceptional diversity, particularly where fungi are concerned.
The diversity of colour, shapes and sizes evidenced in the fruiting bodies of the fungi, both morphologically and microscopically, provides the basic materials required by the taxonomic scientist to classify these organisms, and for the artist there is an otherwise unseen world waiting to explore multi-dimensionally. Questions are generated by the artist and the scientist alike. Form and function are important considerations from both perspectives. Perhaps the final word can be left to Isaac Asimov: “There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole”.
Essay by Nigel Fechner, Senior Mycologist, Queensland Herbarium
“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci’s exhortation to the reader to observe and to experience the world through one’s senses highlights the importance of connectedness, much the same way that ‘Unseen’ brings the hidden world of life in the soil into focus through a series of interactive, experiential displays integrating the conceptualization of art with the knowledge of science. Thus begins an exploratory journey into the arcane world of the soil, where synthesis, destruction and relentless biological warfare typifies the daily struggle for species’ survival.
This episode of ‘Survival’ takes place at Purga Nature Reserve, a relatively unseen but easily accessible jewel in Ipswich City Council’s conservation crown. Situated only 18 km from the heart of Ipswich, the plight of the endangered swamp tea-tree, Melaleuca irbyana, rests largely upon the preservation of the entire biotic community on this small parcel of land.
When asked to invoke imagery of a woodland or forest, it is to be expected that one envisages an environment which is filled with different kinds of trees and shrubs, a grassy understorey and inhabited by various birds, reptiles and mammals. After all, these elements constitute the easily observable component of the system – spatially dominant, but essentially functionally diminutive. What we see on the surface is the end result of the collective actions of an unfathomable array of tiny unseen organisms which interact with each other continuously, those interactions producing the conditions suitable for building the framework – the flora and fauna.
Within the confines of the soil, a complex network of roots, hyphae, minerals, organic matter, chemicals, invertebrates and micro-organisms are blended together in an immeasurable number of combinations, each and every participant playing a vital, stimulating role in regulating the uneasy harmony within the ecosystem.
‘Unseen’ focuses on just one of those contributors: the species cumulatively referred to as ectomycorrhizal fungi. As it happens, there are other types of mycorrhizal relationships, but the fact that these species of fungi produce fruiting bodies which are easily seen, and thus readily quantifiable, makes them well suited to observations by both artist and scientist alike, thus facilitating a synergy of investigation.
For their part, these particular fungi are ever present within the soil. They exist as a network of thread-like filaments known as hyphae, these forming the bulk of the organism’s structure. Such is the volume of these hyphae in the soil, laid end-on-end they would stretch for kilometre upon kilometre. This web of exploratory filaments simultaneously penetrates large distances into the soil as well as entering the roots of particular plants, thereby instigating a mutually beneficial relationship. Proliferation of hyphae throughout the substrate increases the effective surface area of the roots thus giving them greater access to organic compounds in the soil. As the roots have no means within-and-of themselves to acquire the necessary nutrients for growth from this material, the fungus comes into play. They produce a variety of chemicals which act to break down organic matter into smaller component chemical substances which the plant root can absorb and utilize.
So what is the benefit to the fungus? Whilst fungi can chemically break down organic matter - a mechanism for which plants have no faculty - they have no means of synthesising energy-producing compounds from the resultant molecules. The fungus harvests while the plant manufactures, and everyone shares in the produce. Such activity represents only one of the functions provided by the ectomycorrhizal partnership, the complexity of which cannot be expounded within the confines of a short essay.
Portrayal of the function and form of ectomycorrhizal interactions via artistic means provides a plethora of subject matter to be embraced by symbolic representations, interpretive dioramas, reconceptualization of hypotheses and the application of alternative perspectives. Herein we see the overlap with scientific endeavour.
From the artist’s perspective, Purga provides an endangered species of plant which is mycorrhizal in its requirements and therefore a workable explanation of biotic interactions can be presented with a minimum of resources. What is unique with this site, however, is the fact that a significantly sized tract of land supports only a single species of mycorrhizal plant – a monoculture, if you prefer. This simplifies the process of identifying the ‘host’ plant species with which all the observed mycorrhizal fungi species at the site are associated, a task which is no easy feat in a normal mixed forest scenario. From a scientific perspective, this accords an extraordinary set of circumstances. The dynamics of ectomycorrhizal relationships can be examined in terms of an isolated species of tree, without having to make allowances for interference from other competing tree species.
Preliminary soil analyses further demonstrated the uniqueness of the Purga Reserve. Predominately a structurally dynamic black clay with a very low content of organic matter, an extremely low pH just below the surface, and sporadic inundation by rain, this area represents a very harsh environment, but with surprisingly exceptional diversity, particularly where fungi are concerned.
The diversity of colour, shapes and sizes evidenced in the fruiting bodies of the fungi, both morphologically and microscopically, provides the basic materials required by the taxonomic scientist to classify these organisms, and for the artist there is an otherwise unseen world waiting to explore multi-dimensionally. Questions are generated by the artist and the scientist alike. Form and function are important considerations from both perspectives. Perhaps the final word can be left to Isaac Asimov: “There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole”.
Reciprocal Wonderlands
by Beth Jackson, Curator, Artfully
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went, ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other will make you grow shorter.’
‘One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.
‘Of the mushroom’, said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.1
Donna Davis has also been thoughtfully looking at mushrooms or, more broadly speaking, fungi, making weekly field trips over a twelve month period to the Purga Nature Reserve, a critical habitat for the endangered Swamp Tea-tree (Melaleuca irbyana). Like Alice, Davis finds fungi to be a gateway to Wonderland, a bridge between the visible, tangible matter of the forest floor to the invisible microscopic realms of the soil – the worlds beneath our feet ‘down the rabbit hole’.
Alice is compelled by her empathic curiosity to engage with the world around her that she finds both natural and supernatural, familiar and intensely strange. And each of her encounters results in the unexpected reactions of her own body – emotional and physical. She is unavoidably, but also uncontrollably, part of the equation. Unseen is the fungal world ‘down the rabbit hole’ artistically remade, to be experienced and ingested with sensible inquiry.
For Davis, the work of art is not an image or representation of the world, but is, in a true sense, its own world, an offshoot of the world, deeply connected to its own making, its exhibition, and its reception. So the artist’s experience of the Wonderland of the Purga Nature Reserve – seeking out the magical appearance of the fungis’ ephemeral mushrooms or ‘fruiting bodies’, collecting specimens, photographing them, examining them microscopically, generating data sets – has resulted in another world of sensory expression, speculative projection, upcycling and material transformation – as her own ‘fruiting bodies’ bursting from the hyphae filaments of her fertile imagination. The resulting world of the exhibition involves the sensorial participations of audiences, resulting in another chain of effects, clouds of spores, potentially transformative.
Fungi are classified as a kingdom, separate from the life kingdoms of plants and animals. Genetically more closely related to animals than to plants, fungi acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, typically by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment. Fungi do not photosynthesise. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems. In the case of the Purga Nature Reserve, the fungi critically support the Tea-tree forest, maintaining the soil climate, and symbiotically generating nourishment. The caterpillar and the mushroom are mirrors for one another – organisms capable of radical transformation within their natural life cycles. The human device of the long hookah is Alice’s imaginative reminder that she is also flesh and blood and chemical exchange, part of an evolutionary chain, a creature in the process of becoming. Inventing and mastering technologies of science, including the therapeutic and medicinal values of fungi, humans make and remake the world.
Observing the natural world, for artist and scientist, is a topsy turvy business, revealing endlessly interconnecting self-similar structures and systems, replicating at all scales. Clearly, we, as living biological organisms, are part of the picture – as members of a species in evolutionary families, food chains, eco-systems, and habitats, and also as living hosts for countless colonies of microbial organisms, our personal Wonderlands. And today, in the age of the Anthropocene, we have collectively become the most influential part of the picture. Unseen gently reveals the many sensorial ways we perceive the world around us, potentially leading us into a deeper appreciation for and awareness of environmental relationships. There is an underlying message of reciprocation that is deeply comforting … if we look after the environment, it will look after us. Of course, as this truth is so perfectly round, it is also a very difficult question … one worthy of deep reflection.
by Beth Jackson, Curator, Artfully
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went, ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other will make you grow shorter.’
‘One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.
‘Of the mushroom’, said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.1
Donna Davis has also been thoughtfully looking at mushrooms or, more broadly speaking, fungi, making weekly field trips over a twelve month period to the Purga Nature Reserve, a critical habitat for the endangered Swamp Tea-tree (Melaleuca irbyana). Like Alice, Davis finds fungi to be a gateway to Wonderland, a bridge between the visible, tangible matter of the forest floor to the invisible microscopic realms of the soil – the worlds beneath our feet ‘down the rabbit hole’.
Alice is compelled by her empathic curiosity to engage with the world around her that she finds both natural and supernatural, familiar and intensely strange. And each of her encounters results in the unexpected reactions of her own body – emotional and physical. She is unavoidably, but also uncontrollably, part of the equation. Unseen is the fungal world ‘down the rabbit hole’ artistically remade, to be experienced and ingested with sensible inquiry.
For Davis, the work of art is not an image or representation of the world, but is, in a true sense, its own world, an offshoot of the world, deeply connected to its own making, its exhibition, and its reception. So the artist’s experience of the Wonderland of the Purga Nature Reserve – seeking out the magical appearance of the fungis’ ephemeral mushrooms or ‘fruiting bodies’, collecting specimens, photographing them, examining them microscopically, generating data sets – has resulted in another world of sensory expression, speculative projection, upcycling and material transformation – as her own ‘fruiting bodies’ bursting from the hyphae filaments of her fertile imagination. The resulting world of the exhibition involves the sensorial participations of audiences, resulting in another chain of effects, clouds of spores, potentially transformative.
Fungi are classified as a kingdom, separate from the life kingdoms of plants and animals. Genetically more closely related to animals than to plants, fungi acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, typically by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment. Fungi do not photosynthesise. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems. In the case of the Purga Nature Reserve, the fungi critically support the Tea-tree forest, maintaining the soil climate, and symbiotically generating nourishment. The caterpillar and the mushroom are mirrors for one another – organisms capable of radical transformation within their natural life cycles. The human device of the long hookah is Alice’s imaginative reminder that she is also flesh and blood and chemical exchange, part of an evolutionary chain, a creature in the process of becoming. Inventing and mastering technologies of science, including the therapeutic and medicinal values of fungi, humans make and remake the world.
Observing the natural world, for artist and scientist, is a topsy turvy business, revealing endlessly interconnecting self-similar structures and systems, replicating at all scales. Clearly, we, as living biological organisms, are part of the picture – as members of a species in evolutionary families, food chains, eco-systems, and habitats, and also as living hosts for countless colonies of microbial organisms, our personal Wonderlands. And today, in the age of the Anthropocene, we have collectively become the most influential part of the picture. Unseen gently reveals the many sensorial ways we perceive the world around us, potentially leading us into a deeper appreciation for and awareness of environmental relationships. There is an underlying message of reciprocation that is deeply comforting … if we look after the environment, it will look after us. Of course, as this truth is so perfectly round, it is also a very difficult question … one worthy of deep reflection.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, The Sunshine Press, London and Glasgow, p.58.