Project Mycelium a project in progress by Bianca Nikolareizi & Robert Bryant

Project Mycelium a project in progress by Bianca Nikolareizi & Robert Bryant

Α multimedia exhibition with biological sculptures

Duration: Thursday 27th, Friday 28th & Saturday 29th of March 2025, 11am - 6pm

* Saturday 29th of March: performances 1pm & 4pm

Agricultural Museum of the Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, Athens

On 27, 28 & 29 March, 2025 the first open to the public presentation of Project Mycelium, a project in progress by Bianca Nikolareizi and Robert Bryant, will take place at the Agricultural Museum of the Agricultural University of Athens. It is a groundbreaking encounter between Art, Science and History. A multimedia exhibition with biological sculptures and performances. Costumes that could have been worn by great personalities of modern Greek history (Ioannis Kapodistrias, Amalia Queen of Greece & Maria Callas) are transformed into dynamic landscapes for the development of new life.

The exhibition space is giving the impression of a crypt or a repository of artefacts. It is dominated by a series of human figures. Some contain an exact replica of the costume worn by an eminent person of the recent Greek history (political & cultural), others  contain original fashion creations. The costumes are not intact. Each costume is colonized by one or more species of living fungi, spreading their mycelium, devouring and disfiguring the fabrics. The fungal cultures are specifically prepared so that fruitbodies appearance will coincide with the presentation dates, covering the costumes with a profusion of mushrooms. The mushrooms’ growth on the biological sculptures will be different each day of the exhibition and are fated to deteriorate and die right after the presentation, thus limiting its duration for only 3 days!. Interspersed are screens and mapping projectors reproducing fragments of the entire "cultivation" process, time lapses, micro-photographies and derived artworks.

On Saturday  March 29 at 1pm and 4pm the performer, Aliki Germanou, executes a choreography in the exhibition space: A woman “hieromnemon” (with its Byzantine meaning, like magistrate mindful and guardian of sacred things and archives), an enigmatic creature wanders amid biological sculptures and images.

Project Mycelium is being developed in collaboration with the Laboratory of General and Agricultural Microbiology of the Agricultural University of Athens, under the supervision of Professor Georgios Zervakis and Assistant Professor Georgios Koutrotsios. They provide the scientific consulting and are coordinating all the experiments conducted in the facilities of the Laboratory.

The documentation of the project including filming and time lapses of the fungal growth, microphotographs, visual fragments and projection mapping, is supervised by film director Akrivi Kollia.

The decision of Bianca Nikolareizi & Robert Bryant to engage in this lengthy and complex process came after a study of scientific literature on fungal growth and pertinent applications by such authors as Bryce Kendrick and John Deighton, and the inspiration found in modern thinkers and anthropologists like Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and Eduardo Kohn.

Bianca Nikolareizi & Robert Bryant wanted to work with organisms appearing in irreparably injured places, depleted and forsaken areas, often devastating humans and their dominion over the planet, while at the same time providing hope for the solution to many plaguing problems (clothing industry wastes, plastic wastes, etc), not to mention research into novel materials and pharmaceuticals. In this project they wanted principally to deal with memory, its corrosion, disfigurement and at times, salutary deliverance from it. Through their endeavor they attempt to highlight some of the multi-level connections of artistic expression with science, technology, social issues and ecology.

Project Mycelium

concept & art direction: Bianca Nikolareizi & Robert Bryant

with the scientific collaboration of the Laboratory of General & Agricultural Microbiology of the Agricultural University of Athens: Professor Georgios Zervakis, Assistant Professor Georgios Koutrotsios, PhD Candidate Savvas Christodoulou

exhibition venue: Agricultural Museum “Leonidas Louloudis” of the Agricultural University of Athens, courtesy of the Director of the Museum, Professor Stavros Zografakis and the Communication Manager Evridiki Spyropoulou

performance: Aliki Germanou

cinematography & documentation:

Akrivi Kollia, film director, video artist

Dimitris Kosikidis, timelapse photography, technical management

Nikos M. Dalezios, projection mapping, editing

soundscape: Robert Bryant, Dimitris Kosikidis

costume design: Bianca Nikolareizi

metal sculpture construction: Stelios Gkikas

costume construction: Agni Lavida

project advisor: Alexandros J. Stanas

*

LINK FOR VISUALS >>> https://tinyurl.com/3kkfmzmy

ãProject Mycelium 2025