tinyMONDAY: Mutations in Urban Development—Fungi as Societal Agents and Generators of Ideas

Please register for the event on Zoom here.
 

In cooperation with tinyBE. living in a sculpture and Akademie Schloss Solitude, KfW Stiftung invites you to a conversation on interdisciplinary perspectives on urban development.

The potential of fungi is widely underestimated: as uncontrollable collaborators, they provide highly developed structures and thus open up practical and theoretical spaces for new conceptions. In fungal biotechnologies, they have become research objects for sustainable building materials and at the same time help shape artistic experiments. What is the significance of fungi as a source of ideas for a sustainable and at the same time innovative future? And what perspectives do artistic impulses offer on scientific questions?

A discussion on the multifaceted significance of fungi, in which experts from art, architecture, biodiversity and science meet.

KfW Stiftung collaborates with the initiative tinyBE. living in a sculpture and contributes in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude to the programme with the conception of a tinyMONDAY. Within this framework, observations from the discursive programme of Mutations will be further developed.

tinyBE: Starting point for the conversation is the habitable sculpture MY-CO Space, which was constructed from a new type of building material based on fungal cultures and will be installed in Metzlerpark in Frankfurt am Main from June 26–September 26, 2021. The habitable sculpture designed by the MY-CO-X collective questions what and how humans can learn from fungal cultures, networks, and architects. The interdisciplinary collaboration makes possible an artistic-scientific examination of the future societal importance of fungi (Lat. mycota) for the creation of places and spaces. For those who are interested, it is possible to book an overnight accommodation or a short stay in the sculpture. You can find more information here.

With the kind support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, Stiftung Flughafen Frankfurt/Main, Stadt Frankfurt am Main Kulturamt, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Crespo Foundation, Ikea Stiftung and many others/ Patron: Dr. Ina Hartwig, Head of Department for Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt am Main. 

The artist collective MY-CO-X, founded by Prof. Dr. Vera Meyer (biotechnologist and artist, TU Berlin) and Prof. Sven Pfeiffer (architect and designer, HS Bochum), has been working together since 2020. The biotechnologist and the architect—along with eight other artists, fungal biotechnologists, and designers—create works that bring scientific and biotechnological research together with art- and design-based experiments. The collective acts as a constructive and critical provider of ideas and communicator of scientific questions in the field of art. Flora, fauna, and funga constitute the most advanced organisms on our planet—form and define them. Fungi as the active agents of humans together with plants could have future applications as a sustainable raw materials for use in both art and everyday life.

Maxwell Mutanda is a multidisciplinary researcher, visual artist and designer who uses meticulously detailed collages and architectural practice to create sustainable participatory design. He is a co-founder of the design research firm Studio [D] Tale which explores social and environmental issues across disciplines including architecture, urban transit, migration and product innovation. He is also a fellow of the Mutations residency of the KfW Stiftung in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Mutations is a cooperation between Akademie Schloss Solitude, an international and transdisciplinary artists’ residence based in Stuttgart, and the KfW Stiftung, Frankfurt, an independent nonprofit foundation active in the fields of Responsible Entrepreneurship, Social Commitment, Environment, and Climate as well as Arts & Culture. The Arts & Culture programme focuses on intercultural dialogue and artistic production in the global context.