StrataSpore is a platform for collective knowledge about mushrooms. Initiated by Kate Cahill, Christopher Kennedy, Athena Kokoronis, Caroline Woolard, and mycologist Gary Lincoff, Strataspore uses mushrooms as material and metaphor for latent potential and unseen infrastructure. Right now, mushrooms are eating oil spills, connecting old members of Fluxus, feeding communities, and growing as alternative packaging material. Mushrooms are the pivotal orientation point for members of Strataspore to explore urban systems. We dance, eat, build, and learn with mushrooms.
About Strataspore
When the largest and oldest living organism known surfaces, it manifests as a delicate mushroom no bigger than the palm of a hand. Inspired by rhizome networks as tools for bioremediation, a metaphor for the layers of unseen infrastructure below our feet, and a collaborative niche upon which to focus a collective narrative, we propose a multifaceted interactive research project that will culminate in events combining dance, education, environmental remediation and architecture during a two-week ramble tracing the proposed path of the Brooklyn Greenway. StrataSpore is a platform for collective knowledge about local NYC ecosystems and its potential for applications in urban sustainability. The platform will cultivate “spores” of knowledge by combining elements of task/performance-based art, experiential learning, and experimental design practice that implements a dialogue about unseen, natural and man-made systems as sites for restorative sustainability applications. Our focus will be directed to the mushroom, and its potential for changing the ecology within a landscape. We invite communities and individuals to partake (with CAAKe) in a multidisciplinary practice of visualization and re-interpretation of natural systems (mycology) as models for community engagement.
Based on the connective function and form of mushroom ecology, StrataSpore will harness local fungi as a model for engagement and re-interpretation of living in urban spaces.
StrataSpore Team
Gary Lincoff
Athena Kokoronis
Caroline Woolard
Christopher Kennedy
Kate Cahill
StrataSpore “Spores”
Cassie Thornton
Yuko Mittsu
Alex
Monique Milleson
Special thanks to The Looking Glass Theatre who’s goal is to create a community of artistic freedom. Please visit them online and spread the word about their amazing programs!
iLand
StrataSpore is made possible through generous funding and support from iLand: Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance. iLand investigates the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.
Contact Us
Want more information about the StrataSpore project or want to join us or help out with events or activities? Contact us at strataspore [at] gmail [dot] com