Curated by Milovan Farronato and Paulina Olowska
1-7 September
Pivô
São Paulo, Brazil
AVAF (featuring Pipa – Comida de Papel and Yusuf Etiman), Anna Bella Geiger, Madalena Bernardes, Luiza Bernardes, Paloma Bosquê, Adriano Costa, Giulio Delvè, Chiara Fumai, Delia Gonzalez, Justyna Górowska, Lucia Koch, Honorata Martin, Daniele Milvio, Prem Sahib, Augustas Serapinas and Georgina Starr
For its third edition Mycorial Theatre went through a radical shift, moving across the Atlantic and eradicating its muddy forest boots to firmly place its footprints in the middle of a metropolis. Mycorial Theatre moved from Rabka-Zdrój to São Paulo, where it was co-organised and hosted by Pivô Art and Research.
For the first few days participants present took part in inspirational urban journeys. A propitiatory initiation led by AVAF, with Pipa – Comida de Papel and Yusuf Etiman, included a walk through the city based on conscience and coincidence and following ideas of psychogeography, during which participants – all dressed in green – foraged for urban vegetables and plants; seeking also to discover traces of mushrooms hidden amongst the city’s concrete surfaces. The produce collected was prepared and cleaned with coconut soap by Pipa and later consumed during the first collective dinner…
Lucia Koch experimented in growing luminescent mycelium, collaborating with professor Cassius Stevani and Hans Waldenmaier from the Fungal Bioluminescence Laboratory at University of São Paulo. Her samples gave a subtle glow to the experience. Meanwhile the astral presence of Chiara Fumai appeared remotely, sending Succubus Spirits to influence the dreams of the other participants.
Paulina Olowska and Georgina Starr consulted with a street-side tarot reader to determine the future of the project.
Inside Castelinho Brigadeiro – a haunted house that had been closed for 10 years – the participants prepared for a ritual. A black candle was lit and surrounded by jewellery; a dried amanita muscaria was placed on a brick and presided over by Paulina Olowska. With the shift to a new location the quasi-symposium had stayed the same: a mycelium, esoteric, an exotic community.
