MUSHROOM MODULATIONS

Native Plant Trust proudly presents its first visiting artist, Christine Southworth. Christine is a Lexington-based multimedia composer whose work primarily involves nature—lightning, honeybees, coral reefs, spiders, snowflakes, and, currently, mushrooms! Her new work incorporates photographs and videos of mushrooms growing at Garden in the Woods and around Middlesex County from summer 2021 through the present, and she is using these to create an immersive performance environment. The electrical currents given off by mycelium networks are thought to be used as communication between different fungal fruiting bodies. Surrounded by her images of mushroom colonies growing and fading throughout the seasons, she will make music with live mushrooms that she has grown by “listening to” slight electrical variations in the colonies via electrodes placed on different parts of the fruiting growth and converted to sound. The performance will be followed by a discussion with the artist.