Mycoremediation

︎︎︎April, 2020
︎︎︎Princeton, NJ

Solo exhibition in the Lewis Center of the Arts, Lucas Gallery. 

“Mycoremediation is a process that employs fungi in the removal of toxic compounds such as petroleum and diesel oil. Princeton University is a private Ivy League research institution that invests in the distribution of toxic compounds such as petroleum and diesel oil. This exhibition, which was located in Princeton University, is about extractive industries and their power over the body, childhood play, fungi, and dancing.”

Mycoremediation was my final solo exhibition at Princeton. The installation featured a water system with black ink moving from the pond, up the central wall, and then through the wire body. The show’s opening featured a live DJ set with silent headphones, and a number of dance performers. Visitors walked into the space and were confronted with the following phrase: 

“The world is burning,
  Is that all there is to it,
  Let us dance ?”

People needed to choose whether to put on the headphones and dance within the space, taunting the sickly sculpture which was stuck to the oil system, or observe and feel the stuckness of the figure. In the end, most people were dancing within the space, which many chose to read as a symbol of collective healing and the processing of harm through movement of the body.