There are those who may be questioning why Melbourne needs another city-wide festival, so soon after RISING, and what’s the difference between them anyway? But do you know who is not asking that question? Probably the lines around the block who queued up to listen to Roxane Gay playfully pontificating earlier this week. Nor the ‘hyper-engaged and enamoured‘ throngs who took over the Royal Exhibition Building last weekend. And nor, indeed, the packed house who turned out on a windy and chilly evening to witness a trio of fungi fanciers* explain why this section of the biological world could be our salvation in Fungi Futures at the Melbourne Museum.
Who were all these people merrily marching into the Museum? Melbourne can’t really be the epicentre of mycelium admirers everywhere, can it? But as soon as Merlin Sheldrake beamed in from the UK via the wizardry of video conferencing and began to explain his long history and fascination with all things fungi to panel moderator Natasha Mitchell, it felt as if the entire audience were entranced, hanging on to his every word. Sheldrake is a global giant in his field – no pun intended – and the author of Entangled Life. He was also featured in Fungi: Web of Life, a film in MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival), which closed last week.
Mitchell was then joined on stage by the Botanic Gardens’ mycologist Dr Tom May, who explained how even lay folk can become involved in populating the great Fungimap initiative, and Fungi Solutions’ Amanda Morgan, who informed the crowd she started off in fashion design and, in a glorious morphing of a career, now works with fungi experimenting and investigating how their properties can be applied to clothing, waste disposal, construction and so many more industries.
Perhaps the event could have been improved by the judicious use of some slides and imagery to give the crowd a better idea of the sorts of fungi being discussed, but the speakers were certainly all interesting enough individually to hold our rapt attention.
Questions from the crowd came thick and fast, and only a couple of them were from the “just plain silly” camp. Most were thoughtful, engaged and clearly aimed at discovering more about this miraculous group of eukaryotic organisms (yes, I had to look that up) and how studying them and their properties could have really encouraging possibilities for the future of the planet. The idea that certain fungi will ingest everything from denim offcuts to cigarette butts is a hopeful enough fact alone.
* not an official term.
Fungi Futures was a one-off panel discussion held at Melbourne Museum on Wednesday 28 August as part of Now or Never 2024.
