Stephen Hobbs exhibition ‘The Visitors’ at The Blue House
On 13 April 2024 Stephen Hobbs and Afrifungi’s Shiitake Mushroom log installation at the Blue House was launched with a public presentation and a serving of Lion’s mane and Oyster Mushrooms. Hobbs returns with a more fantastical take on the terraforming capabilities of fungus, speculation around their intergalactic travels, and their potential for reimaging our approach to the built environment. Hobbs’ new installation draws from his fascination with a super large fruiting mushroom species – Ganoderma destructans, a parasitic fungus attacking the root system and base of a Stinkwood tree close to his house in Linden and the presence of a second specimen clutching a Stinkwood tree diagonally opposite on the corresponding residential block.
This new body of work incorporates living mediums such as mycelium and mushrooms into mixed media sculpture, complimented by a series of new drawings. For Hobbs the ongoing fascination with growing and designing ‘things’ with mycelium offers a complimentary and dynamic lens through which to critique Johannesburg’s intrinsic nature of collapsing and rebuilding.
The exhibition opens on 17 August and runs until 28 September.
Some notes:
- Boasting over 10 million trees Johannesburg vies for position of largest man-made forest in the world. (Google)
- Celtis Africana - white stinkwood with its pale grey smooth bark and ovate leaves, were widely planted as a shade tree in gardens, parks and along streets. (Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Struik, 1993)
- As the mycelial body of the Ganoderma destructans search of carbohydrates interlacing itself with the tissues and fibers of the stinkwood tree, the trunk and root system will likely disintegrate, and the trees will die.
- Special thanks to: Bronwyn Millar and her natural instincts for mushroom hunting and foraging, to Afrifungi for creative guidance and lab work and to David Krut and his team for enabling these enquiries on numerous levels.