The Botanical Gardens Kew and their Grow Wild Team sent us a brief to create a mushroom installation which would interactively and creatively explain the way that mycelium works. So we took their mood board and starting with 3D Cad design drawing.
Kew and Grow Wild where very excited by our designs and the feedback from their mycologist was:
“To be honest, it could be more trumpety, with the conical part and gills extending further down the ‘stem’.As it is though, it looks cool. As. F**k.”
Please excuse his french. But with this we got to work!
Many processes and materials where used to create the object itself, sounds and light. Welding the metal work structure, adding the ribs and foam to create the mushroom gills, wiring LED ribbon through the silicon roots and trumpets, rigging microphones on the ends of the roots and heads of the trumpets to achieve a fully interactive attraction which featured in arts and science festivals around the UK in 2 summers of touring.
