Bianca Tainsh Residency Blog 1

In contrast to the self-centric over-exploits of contemporary humankind, there is an obscure underground industry of intelligence between intimate organisms. Electric impulses and chemical amalgams transmit esoteric communications. Long before a human internet, nature initiated its own network. A multi-species affiliation, manifesting from primordial relationships with fungi.

Earthy suffusions of tree roots and fungal mycelium, form an intimate intermingling of entities, pulsating, nourishing, and talking. A perpetuity of cells and molecules, endlessly transmuted by the processes of Earth and Cosmos, reactionary and vital down to the individual organism, rock, spore.

Reduced by a delusional state of species exceptionalism, industrialised humans have gradually de-evolved from this organic alchemy. An escalating compulsion to consume everything, greasing the slippery slide into existential liquidation. The human engine has much to relearn from Earth’s other entities about how to live on this planet.

Over the last three years, my research into these systems has stemmed from a desire to bridge the gap between human and the more-than-human realms. This growing chasm of disconnect is illuminated by increasingly dualistic ways of being, as humans become more digitally and materially saturated.

My long-term investigation departed from a concept: that with their talent for transmitting communications across entire ecosystems, subterranean mycorrhizal networks could be our portals for communing with nature. In my upcoming blog posts, I’ll reveal the multidimensional aspects of this journey so far, and how the influence of its discoveries and pitfalls has shaped the vision for the body of work that will emerge through my Metro Arts residency.

Alternate perspectives and dynamic conversations have pollinated this project, so please feel free to contribute your own thoughts to this space. If the culture of biomes can teach us anything, it is that diversity is key to enriching every ecosystem.

Have a perspective you want to contribute, or thoughts regarding Bianca’s practice? Email contact@biancatainsh.com to join the conversation

Image acknowledgements

• Micro 1.jpg – Bianca Tainsh, microscopy with Sandra Tuszynska.
• PRACTICES.png – Bianca Tainsh