SENSING FUNGI

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08 – 10 October 2025 SENSING FUNGI. INVISIBLE AGENCIES AND THE UNDERGROUND Fungi are everywhere. They colonize our bodies and environments, enrich food and medicine, provide sustainable materials, and some even withstand the most extreme conditions. With their refined perceptual capacities, fungi are masters of adaptation and collaboration, engaging in myriad forms of symbiosis. Through their wood-wide webs, mycelial networks supply forests with vital resources and infrastructure while sequestering large amounts of carbon. They can divide into multiple individuals and persist for millennia—challenging prevailing notions of identity and terminality. From shamans and witches to lucky New Year’s fly agarics and the psychedelic movement, fungi have always been woven into human culture. Yet as mediators between organic and inorganic matter, feared for their toxicity, and resisting categorization as well as cultivation, they have long been sidelined by academia—relegated to the underworld, dark spaces, and a secret knowledge embodying the unconscious »other« of an enlightened, rationalized view of nature and culture. Given today’s socio-ecological challenges, fungi offer a generative ground for rethinking ecological practice and more-than-human coexistence from below. Concept by Co.Lab Mycelial Space / Sarah Kolb & Jutta Strohmaier (Linz) Participants: Ilka Becker (Mainz), Magdalena Breitwieser (Linz), Roberto Dell’Orco (Paris), Jitka Effenberger (Linz), Johanna Ficht (Berlin), Nikolaus Gansterer (Linz), Erik Göngrich (Berlin), Karin Harrasser (Linz/Wien), Julia Ihls (Karlsruhe), Charlotte Janis (Paris), Maria Kobylenko (Berlin), Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian (New York), Fabricio Lamoncha (Linz), Flavia Matei (Linz), Peter McCoy (Portland, OR), Maja-Lisa Müller (Bielefeld), Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez (Mexico City), Alison Pouliot (Victoria/Biel), Nora Wilhelm (Berlin), Feifei Zhou (New York, NY). An interdisciplinary symposium at ifk Arkade (International Research Center for Cultural Studies of the University of Art and Design Linz) at Reichsratsstraße 17, Vienna in cooperation with Wiener Pilzfestspiele.

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