 "Entanglements is a magical realism portrayal of anthropomorphic creatures built of mycelium and the fruiting bodies of fungi. It’s inspired by the role of the mycorrhizal network in forests, which acts as a web between trees to provide nutrients as well as information, therefore supporting multiple species and building an architecture for a successful ecosystem. Donna Haraway captures this idea, and its challenge to capitalism’s Darwinian justifications, with the term “sym-poiesis” -- that organisms build worlds through making together.
The lessons of “sym-poiesis” resonate with current events, when issues such as the willful denial of systematic racism for economic benefit are being magnified by the pandemic. By valuing an arbitrary few over others our communities are weakened. The ecology of the forest illustrates an alternative -- strength depending on multiple worlds interconnecting, where beings are entangled together in fluctuations of growth and decay. Revealing to us ways to maintain resilience when a world values economic growth over bodies." Originally Published in the youarehere: the journal of creative geography's Bodies & Politics issue. “Skill in living, awareness of belonging to the world, delight in being part of the world, always tends to involve knowing our kinship as animals with animals. Darwin first gave that knowledge a scientific basis. And now, both poets and scientists are extending the rational aspect of our sense of relationship to creatures without nervous systems and to nonliving beings-our fellowship as creature with other creatures, things with other things.” Ursula K Le, Guin, Deep in Admiration “How can we repurpose the tools of modernity against the terrors of Progress to make visible the other worlds it has ignored and damaged? Living in a time planetary catastrophe thus begins with a practice at once humble and difficult: noticing the worlds around us.” Heather Swanson, Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt, and Elaine Gan, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet Comments are closed.
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