THE ART & FUNGI PROJECT
Willoughby Arevalo & Isabelle Kirouac
The Art and Fungi Project created a very comfortable environment and helped me gain a new appreciation of the abundance in our environment. I will look more carefully now on my nature walks. I appreciated how it helped me create a personal connection with all my senses. – Participant
These days I stop at trees and fallen leaves. I look and feel for a little longer and gentler. The forest movement practive was delightful had an impact on me. Thank you.
– Participant
Join the Art & Fungi Project, a living laboratory facilitated by Willoughby Arevalo and Isabelle Kirouac, where everyone is invited to create artistic work and participate in engaging activities inspired by fungi and how they help to shape and connect our world.
Together, we will learn about fungi and their ecological roles through art and play. We will use all our senses to connect with each other and with nature; walking, cooking, moving, drawing, writing, talking, mapping, gardening, playing, and much more.
The land informs our bodies, and our bodies inform the land. We strive to emulate the fungi, whose mycelia create vast underground networks, which interconnect beings across their ecosystems to facilitate communication and exchange. Through creating art that emerges from our encounters with fungal life, we strive to be active participants in our ecosystem, learning, listening, and responding to it.
This project arose as an intersection between the work of Isabelle Kirouac, an interdisciplinary choreographer and movement educator, and the work of Willoughby Arevalo, a mycologist, visual artist and kitchen wizard. Together, they have been exploring the relationships between art and fungal life for the last decade.
We acknowledge that we are living, playing and learning on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The Art & Fungi Project 