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Mushroom - Research & Intention


Looking back on the images i took while walking i found that i was often taken pictures of mushrooms. This is obviously down to the time of year i did these walks but it also shows that its something that is interesting me. What interests me most is the variety of mushrooms, there is a multitude of different species and each one is unique. Looking back on the photographs i can see that a lot of the images concentrate on the gills of the mushroom, visually the texture of the gills is very appealing to me.


Below are the possible ways of looking in to mushrooms -

  • Recreating poisonous mushrooms using edible materials
  • mushrooms with hallucinogenic properties
  • the mushrooms form such as its gills
  • mushrooms used for medicines
  • foraging 
  • mushrooms used in tribal rituals
  • mushrooms in history - Egyptians believed they were the plant of immortality
  • mushrooms are more similar to humans than plants in relation to their cells




One image that really intrigued me is the ink cap (Possibly the shaggy ink cap) mushroom pictured above. When i first came across this mushroom my initial thought was that something had been  poured on it. However after some research i found that this mushroom once full grown it 'erodes' upwards and turns to this black ink above. It can take 3 days from it only being a small mushroom to it being fully grown and turning to black ink. This plant is edible but poisonous if eaten when consuming alcohol. 

This has lead me on to investigate if it is possible  to recreate this process making a solid mushroom like sculpture that will in a sense melt to reveal the black inky liquid. My initial thought was to use something edible like black treacle and maybe add some kind of alcohol linking to the edible becoming poisonous however i'm unsure as to how i would solidify this into a hard sculpture to then melt. This could possibly be done through freezing but i will have to do some trial tests. After speaking with a tutor and some technicians they suggested i looked at bitumen. I began researching places in Norwich that sold bitumen in small quantities, from this i found out that there are two types of bitumen hard and soft. Selecting hard bitumen could possibly allow me to cast a mushroom shape or even sculpt by hand- this will be establish with safety data sheet and actually seeing the bitumen itself. 

Safety data sheet in research file and Idea in sketch book.


Research used - 

  • https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/coprinopsis-atramentaria.php
  • https://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guide/common-inkcap/
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9uVN3gYgzc
  • https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/coprinus-comatus.php
  • https://www.mushroomdiary.co.uk/2010/10/shaggy-ink-cap/





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