DENKEN WIE EIN WALD – CO-DESIGN MIT MYCELIUM

A lot of nature has disappeared due to mining and the chemical industry in and around Bitterfeld-Wolfen – and yet flora and fauna are reclaiming their place in many places. Where factories once stood, trees and shrubs are now growing again. Designer and design researcher Elena Maldonado invites us to think like a forest and focus on collaborative creation and co-design. The forest owes its ability to recover from industry to an underground network of fungi. Fungi supply trees with nutrients and decompose pollutants. Mycelium, the root network of fungi, can be anything that builds our environment. Fungi are maps; systems in which all geometries come together and completely new spaces of possibility are created. The threads of their roots connect and sustain like the roots of a forest. The workshop emphasizes the importance of process, imagination and fiction in the interaction between humans and nature: By learning from nature, especially from the regenerative, natural environment in Wolfen, we can enter into an active dialog with living material.

A lot of nature has disappeared due to mining and the chemical industry in and around Bitterfeld-Wolfen – and yet flora and fauna are widely reclaiming their place. Where once there were factories, trees and shrubs are now growing again. Designer and design researcher Elena Maldonado invites participants to think like a forest and focus on collaborative creation and co-design. The forest owes its ability to recover from industry to an underground network of fungi. Fungi supply trees with nutrients and decompose pollutants. Mycelium, the root network of fungi, can be anything that builds our environment. Fungi are maps; systems in which all geometries come together and completely new spaces of possibility are created. The threads of their roots connect and sustain like the roots of a forest. The workshop emphasizes the importance of process, imagination and fiction in the interaction between humans and nature: By learning from nature, especially from the regenerative, natural environment in Wolfen, we can enter into an active dialog with living material.