AKK Anne-Kathrin Kühner
Imprint
Mycelium growing with textiles
Berlin/Stuttgart 2025
Supported by: Eliza Biala & FuMaLab Stuttgart
Entangled Mycelium shows a series of textile-constructed objects that have been fused with living mycelium. The se sculptural hybrids reveal the complex interplay between material, growth decay and transformation.
The work explores the entanglement on several levels: biologically, through the network of roots of mycelium. Materially, through the intentional construction of threads to textiles that guide and shape fungal growth. Textiles, usually pliant and formless, are solidified at one moment by the organism’s expansion, turning soft fabric into solid, structural forms.
Each object reflects a unique stage in the growth process of mycelium. Some are still alive and evolving, continuing to grow and change in real time. Others are dried and solidified in their final shape. The transformation is also visible through color as mycelium matures. It shifts from bright white to hues if yellow and eventually brown.
There is a sense of agency in the way the fungus grow. Where it digests, what it spreads and covers, and where fruiting bodies emerge. It appears to choose its own path. Mycelium is remarkably strong. It binds particles together into a cohesive whole, and once it has grown into a material, it’s difficult to separate. Yet it is also very fragile: every touch leaves a trace.
The vessel-like forms are inspired by baskets, all made by hand, using text techniques as a foundation for fungal colonization. The three-dimensional textile-mycelium hybrids demonstrate the potential of living materials as sculpture , as sustainable (building) construction, and as collaboration between designer and organism.