Theme:
3. Heritage Narratives and Representations
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
The Mushroom Speaks: An Archaeology of Fungi Entanglements
Content:
The ubiquity of fungi contrasts their underrepresentation in archaeology. It is about time to change that! All contexts we excavate underwent decomposition by fungi. In fact, the soil we are excavating IS the past, transformed by fungi. The story started with a symbiosis of algae and fungi–lichens–creating life on land 400 mya. Fungi challenge our logical thinking, create unimagined communication networks and question whether there is such a thing as an “individual” at all. This opens the stage for new interpretations of past and future lifeways. Yet, most of us meet mushrooms at the dining table and we can assume that this is also true for the past. But where are they in the archaeological record? And in what diverse ways can we grasp them as vibrant and variously curative-deadly heritage entities?
In this session, we aim to explore all kinds of fungi networks that can be investigated through archaeological thinking, critical heritage concepts and related methodologies. Beyond this however we wish to open up our critical perspectives to alternative creative paradigms that may relate further afield to fiction, futurisms, storytelling, legends, performance, artworks and activist interventions. Possible themes may include:
- Evidence in archaeological/ palaeoenvironmental contexts: recipes, textiles, pyrotechnology, iconography, texts, isotopes
- Social spheres: collective collecting, preparing, and eating mushrooms; transfer of knowledge, rituals, transformations of states of being, heritage pharmacology (after Butler)
- Rhizome thinking (after Deleuze/ Guattari) vs. tree thinking: alternative approaches to heritage and history(-making)
- Icons of the Anthropocene: atomic mushrooms; part of future studies as agents for decontamination, sustainable building material; models for neuronal networks
- Multispecies/ companion species networks (after Haraway/ Tsing) like the Wood Wide Web formed by mycorrhizae
We invite creative, provocative and subversive contributions from different fields and research background on any of these themes or completely new thoughts.
Keywords:
fungi entanglements, rhizome thinking, heritage pharmacology, Anthropocene icons, multispecies approaches
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Julia Schönicke (Switzerland) 1
Co-organisers:
Cornelius Holtorf (Sweden) 2
Beverley Butler (United Kingdom) 3
Affiliations:
1. Freie Universität Berlin
2. Linnaeus University
3. University College London
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