the adventures of mushroom katie

28 December Wadi Rum, Jordan

A playground in another world, today I climbed in the wadi, Arabic for valley, of giant red sand dunes, sandstone hudus, and basalt rocks coated in desert varnish. The black stain of the desert varnish is created by microbes that live on the surface of the rocks, oxidizing manganese and red iron oxide and coated in clay to reduce heat and radiation. 

Riding a camel is a lesson in looseness, much like knitting. The more you relax, the easier it is. Rocking back and forth in the saddle straddling Arfawn's hump, the movement of my entire body was dictated by the movement of the camel. How often in life is the movement of our bodies determined by something that is beyond our control? Such as being pushed by the waves floating in the ocean or rocking in our mother's arms as a baby. It seems more commonly our motion is moved by machines: riding elevators, escalators, driving in cars. How are our bodies effected differently by being moved by organic forces vs machines?  

Hands off our Fingerprints

Myself, Kathi Winecka and a crew of other people from the Vienna Refugee Protest whipped up this quick poster for monday's protest picnic at the Austrian-Hungarian Border.

The Pan-European Picnic is an annual reenactment of a picnic that occurred 33 years ago when Hungary opened its borders to Austria for one day and hundreds of Germans ran across the border to escape the iron curtain from the east to the west. The Vienna Refugee Protest came to this years picnic, which was on the Hungarian border, to show irony that there was to be no picnic for refugees in Austria. The refugees are not allowed to attend the picnic because they are not allowed to cross borders. Refugees relationships with borders are further complicated with the Dublin 2 Regulation, which returns refugees to their initial country of discovery and reinforces the exploitative surveillance of refugees. When refugees arrive in an EU country, their fingerprints are taken and logged in the Eurodac database. If refugees attempt to leave that country to try of apply for asylum in another country in the EU, if they are caught they are sent back to the initial country. Often times, the initial country that refugees are fingerprinted in is not one of their choosing, rather they are trying to go to Canada or the UK, but are stopped at the border or airport and forced to apply for asylum in that country. It is particularly bad if they are fingerprinted in Hungary because they have less than 1% chance of receiving asylum in Hungary, due to the Hungarian government's policies. Turning refugees fingerprints into the borders of Europe is just one example of how refugees are used as lab rats for biometric control. They are an image of everyone's future, unless we do something to stop this. 

I am writing to you from Vienna where I am collaborating with the Refugee Protest movement to create visual imagery for their efforts to address how migration—spurred by globalization, capitalism and genocide—is complicated further by a biased asylum system. I didn't really understand what the words "Refugee Protest" meant until I got here and saw how the refugees have come together to stand up for their right to have rights. Many of the refugees are from Pakistan, Kashimir, Waziristan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have left their home countries because of US drone attacks on their villages or because they were politically active in their countries and were listed on hit lists for organizing against the Taliban or State repression, now they are undergoing the pacifisation protocol of the Austrian/EU asylum system. In an attempt to repress the refugee protest movement, the Austrian government deported eight refugee protestors last week and accused three of them of human trafficking—an almost mirror image of the Austrian government's Operation Spring in 1999 that accused Nigerian refugees of drug trafficking. Operation Spring was the largest police operation launched since 1945 in which 850 police officers stormed apartments and refugee dormitories throughout Austria.

I have been here for five days. Yesterday in the yard of the monastery where the refugees are staying, we collectively brainstormed imagery that will reference "poison" and "danger" warning signs to illustrate

+) What the refugees face in there home countries +) What the refugees go through in the Austrian asylum system +) What desires, dreams and demands step towards utopia.

Each category will be color coded. In addition to using the signs in the demonstrations and street art, we would like to make digital charts of the signs that people could click on to enter into a page of information on that specific topic — that could be added into with open source programming. For instance, upon clicking on the danger sign for drone strikes, you would go to a page with videos, articles, and images of drone strikes — that you could add to. It would also be interesting if it some how used a game-like system.  If anyone knows of any programmers that would be interested in helping with this, please email me at [email protected]. x

EDIBLE FLOATING WETLAND at New Smyrna Beach High School

The edible floating wetland is designed to take excess fertilizer out of a stormwater retention pond. The reused foam mat is built out of kids play mats. It is planted with aquatic vegetables including water lotus, taro, watercress, shan red rice, arrowroot, cranberry hibiscus, earth almond and water celery. To construct the island, the plants are rolled into coconut coir pads and inserted into plastic pots that fit in the holes in the mat. The coir pads are inoculated with Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius), a type of mushroom that increases the growth of plants, and Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus), a type of mushroom that can filter pollutants and harmful bacteria out of water. As the plants grow, they metabolize the excess nitrogen and phosphorous in the water and therefore prevent excessive algae growth and hypoxic conditions. As the island matures, the plants will shade out the pink color, which references Christo and Jeanne Claude's Surrounded Islands (1983) and challenges that the question of art is no longer one of aesthetics but the survival of life as we know it on this planet.¹ To completely remove the fertilizers, the plants will be harvested and then the island can be replanted. The design of this island is based off of the Beemat, a floating wetland patented by Beeman's Nursery.

HERITAGE GARDEN at the Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum

EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN at the Boys and Girls Club

EDIBLE AQUATIC PLANTS

    Shan Red Rice    ///       Water Lotus      ///       Watercress Oryza sativa ssp.  ///  Nelumbo nucifera  ///  Nasturtium officinale 

I will be planting these in the edible floating wetland I am launching tomorrow. Other species include Onenanthe javanica (Water Celery), Sagittaria spp. (Arrowhead), Colocasia esculenta (Taro), Cyperus esculentus (Chufa / Earth Almond) and Sium sisarum (Skirret).

The Shan Red Rice was acquired from a floating garden on Lake Inle in Myanmar.

BREAKING GROUND AT THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN

EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN 

MYCOFILTER INOCULATION

Inoculating coconut coir strips that will be companion planted with the plants in the edible floating wetland. Mycofiltration is a process that uses mushroom mycelium to filter water. I have chosen to inoculate with Hypsizygus ulmarius (elm oyster) because of its ability to improve plant yields and Coprinus Comatus (shaggy mane) because of its ability to remediate numerous bacteria and heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and mercury. 

Middle Left: Coir strips inoculated with Hypsizygus ulmarius undergoing a two week colonization process in a plastic bag to preserve humidity. 

Middle Right: Planting cup with coir strip insert for edible floating wetland, grain spawn on coir strip.

Bottom Left: Companion Planting chart from Mycelium Running, p. 196 

EDIBLE FLOATING WETLAND

RED REISHI MUSHROOMS - GANODERMA LUCIDUM 

Spawn cultured 1.11.13

Indoor growing started 4.1.13

Using CO2 limiting technique to create antler-shaped reishi mushrooms to be ground into a tea powder and sent to my uncle who has brain cancer. Fruiting will hopefully occur within two months.

PERENNIAL VEGETABLE ARRIVAL

Here is a summary of the initiatives I am currently working on as the Community Artist in Residence in New Smyrna Beach (1 Feb - 1 June 2013)

I have three initiatives:

1. A black heritage garden at the Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum

2. A floating wetland and aquatic vegetable garden that will remove excess pesticides and fertilizers from a stormwater retention pond

3. A garden at the NSB Boys and Girls Club that is part of a garden exchange program with the Boys and Girls Club in Kivalina, Alaska. (Think pen pals, but with Facebook rather than letters and gardening as the topic of conversation).

Here are how the initiatives are going so far:

1. I am in the process of installing a 18’x18’ raised bed in the shape of the monkey wrench symbol. Historically, this symbol was used to signify a person that had knowledge or tools to help slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Ground breaking for the garden began last week. This upcoming week will include painting the boards for the raised beds to match the green trim of the museum, filling the beds in with soil, and planting plants related to black history and culture. The plant selections were gathered through a community survey and historical research. Guiding questions included: What foods did slaves escaping on the underground railroad eat because of their ability to travel well, not needing to be cooked, or gathered in the wild? What herbal remedies were used to heal victims of police brutality during the Civil Rights Era? What plants and plant knowledge were brought over from Africa?  The beds will be finished with a final layer of hardwood mulch inoculated with edible mushroom species that slaves would have found growing wild on their journey to freedom.

2. Last week Beeman’s nursery delivered a 200 square foot used grey mat that I painted pink to reference Christo and Jeanne Claude’s Surrounded Islands art piece from the 1980s. Beeman’s is a local nursery that has patented the “Beemat” design that is the foundation for this project. Lindley’s Nursery delivered 250 aquatic  and water-loving vegetables, including taro, water lotus, arrowhead, water celery, cranberry hibiscus, water chestnut. I am growing watercress, chufa and achira from seed in my mini nursery behind the Harris House, my residence. I am still looking for a stormwater retention pond to install the mat in. Any suggestions are more than welcome, via email: [email protected] or phone 313.605.2924.

3. The Boys and Girls Club garden will be designed by the end of this upcoming week and installed & planted the following week. I have over 50 varieties of edible annuals and perennials growing in the mini-nursery behind the Harris House as well as numerous fruit trees, including asian persimmon, grumichama and fig. The Boys and Girls Club garden will integrate the theory of “food forestry” aka “forest gardening”, a multistoried garden of edible, multipurpose plants that mimics the ecosystem architecture of a forest. Communication from B&GC Kivalina has been quite slow, unfortunately. I have asked them to send me a some images from the traditional art and crafts made by the islands Inupiaq resident. I would like to base the shape of the garden beds off of their traditional designs, but no word yet. As planting season heats up here, I have to move a head with the bed construction. I am thinking about instead centering it around defunct wooden playground structures that I can gather from the neighborhood and use as trellises for beans, pumpkins, grapevines and watermelon to engulf. But fingers crossed the communication with Kivalina will begin to blossom as the snow begins to melt there.