KIBLIX 2021 / Workshops
Saša Spačal and Kaitlin Bryson: MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle
23 March, 30 March and 6 April 2021, 6–8 p.m.
Web platform ZOOM
MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle will be an on/off_line performative workshop that evokes and employs the workshop attendants' mycelial mind through nodes of knowledge gathering practices and embodied mycology. Participants will create their own mythological, speculative stories and reflect on some previously generated while learning about World Networks Entanglements, also known as planetary biological infrastructure.
Each workshop will perform two nodes of the mycelial Storytelling Circle: Networking for Expedition, Gathering Spores and Making Maps, and finally, MycoMythological Storytelling.
No prior knowledge is required to participate in the workshop; only a computer, an Internet connection, any browser, and any text editor are enough. The workshops consist of three meetings (23 March, 30 March and 6 April), each lasting two hours, and will take place through the online platform ZOOM.
Applications are open until 19 March 2021 at irena.boric@kibla.org. Participation is free of charge.
More: https://kiblix.org/
PROGAM
Workshop 1: MycoMythologies: Networking for Expedition
Tuesday, 23 March 2021, 6–8 p.m.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/98548892473
Networking is the first node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle. Participants will begin forming a network through an introduction to the workshop with a lecture about the enchanting world of fungi and mythmaking, as well as through the introduction of physical storytelling objects and tools that will be carried throughout the workshop sessions.
The expedition, the second node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle, will take participants off-screen and into their physical environments individually or in groups on a field exploration to collect information about fungi through writing, recording, and physical exploration.
Workshop 2: MycoMythologies: Gathering Spores and Making Maps
Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 6–8 p.m.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/95571372062
Gathering Story Spores is the third node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle. Participants will begin gathering the foundational fungal »genetic« material, spores for their speculative, mythological story through video, audio, notes, and fictional naming.
Mycelium map-making is the fourth node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle. This node will involve map drawing that will begin to bring a new world into being by embodying speculative places and spore stories in the collective mycelial map.
Workshop 3: MycoMythologies: MycoMythological Storytelling
Tuesday, 6 April 2021, 6–8 p.m.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97644719269
MycoMythological Storytelling is the fifth node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle that brings all the hyphal strands of the workshop together to create a new myth or myths created both individually and collectively. This collective MycoMythology will tell a speculative fiction – a story about our world's inherent possibilities not-yet realized – a tale of becoming connected and entangled.
Spawn is the sixth node of the MycoMythologies: Storytelling Circle, which is a short ritual or donation of the created myth to the World Networks Entanglement and MycoMythological Database named Spawn from which future participants of the workshop might source their research materials.
Saša Spačal is a post-media artist working at the intersection of living systems research, contemporary and sound art. Her artistic research focuses on entanglements of the environment-culture continuum and planetary metabolisms. By developing technological interfaces and relation to soil agents, she addresses the posthuman condition, which involves mechanical, digital, and organic logic within contemporary biopolitics and necropolitics. Her work was exhibited at venues such as Ars Electronica Festival (AT), National Art Museum of China (CHN), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (RUS), Prix Cube (FR), Transmediale Festival (DE), Onassis Cultural Center Athens (GR), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (SI). Her works received awards and nominations at Prix Ars Electronica, Japan Media Art Award, Prix Cube, NewTechnology Art Award, and New Aesthetica Prize.
https://www.agapea.si/en/
Kaitlin Bryson is an ecological artist concerned with environmental and social justice. Her art practice and activism are focused on biological and metaphysical healing applications, responding to the pervasive persistence of harm in the world. Bryson primarily works with fungi as a resource, metaphor, and collaborator for her artworks. Bryson received an MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has received support from the Lannan and Andrew W. Mellow Foundations to create ecologically remediative artworks worldwide. In 2019, Bryson co-founded the Submergence Collective with Hollis Moore.
https://www.kaitlinbryson.com/
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Workshops are part of KIBLA's educational program, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and Municipality of Maribor.
Festival KIBLIX 2020–2021 is part of project RUK (2019–2022). RUK is a network of art and culture research centers on the crossroads of art, science, and technology. The project is co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund.