Mushroom Project

7th Rise Nature Recovery is exploring an exciting collaboration with Nudge Plymouth City Farm and their Mushroom Growing Team to combine art, science and food. Fede Buda the head of the mushroom team is inoculating wooden dowels with mycelium spores. These will be secured into holes in large wooden sculptures and when they fruit we will see gorgeous blooms of 'Blue oyster' mushrooms.

Now I've always been a fan of the Blue Oyster Cult song; 'Don't fear the reaper.' And this felt too good an opportunity not to call this project 'Blue Oyster Club: Don't fear the mushroom'. I'm re reading the amazing book by Merlin Sheldrake, 'Entangled Lives' which is about all things mycelium and he explores attitudes to these incredible organisms. Including the fear and suspicion they invoke. Allied to that they seem to be a bit of a 'bogey' food for children. I know I used to try and smuggle them into the food I cooked for my kids and it took a while but they now love them.

After all they are a high protein low fat food stuff and they're delicious. During our volunteer activities at 7th Rise we've had an expert in forest food and he said our best opportunity for growing edibles in our wood is to go down the mushroom route. This is the beginning of that journey... 

Small sculptures will be made in workshops with Andy which will then be scaled up in public places, like the one above, encouraging people to stop and engage with their surroundings.

Bench in the woodland at 7th Rise

Creating places to be in natural spaces will be a huge part of this project