Artistic Directors Academy (ADA) Public Lecture: Mycelium Teachings: Cultivating Alliances and Collaborations by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez

Synopsis

There is a growing interest in fungi and mycelium as a material, the ever-branching connecting threads of the fungal world. The entanglements and how this rhizomatic network functions is not just a fascinating ecological system and material, but carries a profound usefulness as a metaphor for our potential new systems, ways of thinking and behaviours.

For this lecture, our Artistic Directors Academy (ADA) Module Specialist Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez, author of the book “Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts”, will share what she has learned from working on a shiitake farm and how her deep dive into the world of mycology has influenced the workings and language of the various exchange platforms that she has founded and directed, including the Future Materials Bank and the Green Art Lab Alliance.

About Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez is the founder and director of the Green Art Lab Alliance (established in 2012); a network comprising sixty art organisations across Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia. The mission of the alliance is to foster relationships that contribute to social and environmental justice, akin to the interconnected nature of mycelium.

She founded and directed the Nature Research Department at the Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands, 2017), the Van Eyck Food Lab (2018), and the Future Materials Bank (2020); a crowd-sourced database of sustainable materials for artists, designers and architects. She organised countless Reading Groups, Food Art Film Festivals and has been curator-in-residence, as well as writer-in-residence, in many art institutions worldwide. She is a self-proclaimed “mycophile”, interested in exploring the application of a mycological lens in defining fair models of collaboration and (self) organization. Her debut book, “Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts,” shares twelve teachings of the world of fungi. It was published by Valiz and is being translated into various languages. It was selected as one of the Best Dutch Book Designs 2023 and nominated for the Best Book Design Globally 2023.

Find out more here.