Bridging Worlds

Reflection by Alberto Delorenzini

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In The Ruins, a brief essay from 1907, the philosopher Georg Simmel described in unparalleled fashion the return of architecture to nature. "Destruction," he wrote, "is not a meaningless accident that has come from outside, but the realization of a tendency that lay hidden in the most essential layers of the destroyed work". He was referring, of course, to buildings constructed with traditional architectural materials: stone, brick, cement. But what happens with glass, with metals like aluminum and steel, and even more so, with synthetic resins that are increasingly incorporated into the manufacturing of goods and buildings?

In this installation, aluminum tubes leftover from motorcycle production have been reused. Sofía Lorenzo and Neyla Cefarelli, the authors, ask: "What does organic matter do with these metal structures?" We know something from other experiences that are more familiar to us, such as gazebos or fences, where vine stems wrap around them until they are covered. Art Nouveau took this model to imagine the scrolls of railings, stairs, and grilles, where iron wound around like a living material. But what can grow here, in a glass-walled enclosure, artificially lit and housed within an underground space through which multitudes circulate? More so, why should anything grow? We are in an apparently completely mineralized environment, without water seepage—at least visible-without the slightest hint of sunlight. Nothing further from a grotto and — needless to say-from the grotesque imagination. However, in the most hidden places, in the least apparent stratum of life, fungi, mosses, or lichens probably grow, timidly claiming their space. Let us not forget that plant life is older than animal life, which it also made possible.

"Fungi," says a publication from the National Park Service USA, "are unicellular organisms that do not need light energy to grow. Fungi produce large amounts of microscopic spores that are always present in the environment and spread by air currents. They often repel water and are resistant to drying out. Extreme cold and/or heat can destroy them. Spores germinate when they find a favorable environment.

What constitutes a favorable environment varies for each species. After lodging in the host material, the spores must have enough moisture to germinate and feed. Without moisture, the spores remain inactive until favorable conditions for their development arise."

Sofía and Neyla have already experimented with fungi growth; their interest is not scientific but broadly aesthetic, necessarily including reflection on natural existence.

During the pandemic, they began creating ceramic "fungi farms" with diverse shapes and textures from which these creatures, which we usually see in completely different settings, emerge with total ease. The sensitive qualities of fungi, their fleeting nature, and fragility dramatically contrast with the sharp and pointed forms of this enclosure; they contrast with the duration, consistency, and shine of the objects with which they share space here. How do they do it? These forms with smooth, opaque surfaces, rapid growth, and swift disappearance— what do they tell us, in their silent language, about that other world that surrounds them from which they cannot escape and which, nevertheless, they are willing to accept in action?