A new exhibition at WAMA is inviting visitors to look down, slow down and rethink what’s happening beneath their feet. Entanglements with Fungi: Life, Death and Renewal opens at the National Centre for Environmental Art on 21 March and runs until 1 June, drawing together multidisciplinary artists to explore the strange and vital world of the fungal kingdom.
Blending art, science, history and politics, the exhibition focuses on the cycles that define fungi and, by extension, life on Earth. It’s immersive and multi sensory, moving beyond the visual to tap into sound, texture and even scent.
Works range from pieces made with local earth and materials created through fungal recycling processes to paintings generated from data tracking mushroom growth. An artists’ book stretches eight metres across the gallery, while digital projections of the forest floor spill across walls. There are sound installations built from recordings of tree roots and soil, and live experiments where sensors track the movement of growing fungi in real time.
“The artists invite you to imagine what it might feel like to see, or hear, or smell, through the nurturing exchanges between species which are often remote from the immediacy of our human senses. They ask you to imagine what it might feel like to be something other than human,” says exhibition curator Felicity Spear.
Fungi, neither plant nor animal, underpin ecosystems everywhere. Their networks stretch for kilometres, shaping food systems, medicine and the health of entire landscapes. Yet they remain largely misunderstood and increasingly under threat.
“WAMA at Gariwerd is building a bridge between nature and culture, prompting us to think about human culture not as separate from, but intertwined with Earth’s hidden networks and ecological systems, mutually shaping each other,” says Spear.
Set against the foothills of Gariwerd, WAMA continues to position art as a powerful lens for environmental connection.
Situated at the foothills of Gariwerd/Grampians National Park, WAMA offers a distinctive new cultural experience that unites contemporary art and environmental consciousness across a 16-hectare precinct and includes the Gariwerd Endemic Botanic Garden and Jallukar Native Grasslands alongside the National Centre for Environmental Art – Australia’s only institution dedicated exclusively to the intersection of art and the environment.
More information from wama.au.
