Red Reishi Lantern/Hanging Lamp
For my final project I decided to delve into mycelium as a material. This was my first time growing mushrooms outside of the farm, so the process I am used to when cultivating mushrooms shifted to a different challenge. I have been wanting to make lamps from biomaterials for quite some time since working with them for lifestyle things such as clothing and art. The addition of light to the biomaterial highlights its beauty and uniqueness. Mushrooms are such an interesting collaborator as well, as mycelium can grow into any shape and stay very strong. Red reishi was decided upon as it is known to inoculate with haste. Also, I was excited to see if the mushrooms would fruit, as the coloring and texture of red reishi would be cool to see on a lamp. To sum up my experience, nothing with biomaterials is perfect or in this case completely controllable. I had areas grow green, mycelium matted along the edges of the sheet pans, my humidifier broke once then flooded the tent another time, it was a learning experience all in all. I ended up with 9 good sheet pans, the bowls unfortunately did not colonize the substrate enough and grew mold, so those had to be tossed. With the remaining pans, after baking the moisture out and killing anything else alive (ethical?) I was able to pick out the pieces the mycelium took over the most and create my hanging lamp.
The entire process took 1 month. I began inoculating bags of sterilized corn with red reishi mycelium, then let that rest in the grow tent with high humidity and warm temperatures and saw growth within 2 days. The following two weeks the mycelium spread over the corn making its way throughout the bag. Once mycelial fluff appeared and the bags were fully white, I transferred that into a big tub and mixed up the mycelium corn chunks with coco coir and hydrated soil. This mixture went into sheet pans and bowls to see what would give the best result. This was important to try different forms, as I found the mycelium did end up liking the flat sheet pan environment over the bowls. Other things I can consider is if containers had too much air flow/not enough, too dry, or just contamination. Not everything grew, but some pans grew a lot and super fast. The process itself was incredible to witness. Being the collaborator to the mushroom, it felt special to see it expand and come to life, yet makes me interested in bioethics and what it means to “kill” or even objectify it. The appreciation of the fibers and the beauty of its nature was something I was trying to lean into through my process. I couldn’t decide how its final form would look exactly, I had an idea in mind and did my best to see this idea through. Having any physical object from this surprised me, as the sheet pans did not grow as thick as I needed them to be, leading me to have concerns on the final product.
Leaning into the collaborative nature of the bio world, I encased the mycelium in a biogel made from gelatin. I did this because I had found it to dry and “glue” things together well. The biogel also forms bubbles, which I liked adding to the aesthetic of the design. I followed the bubbly gel along the gaps making a webby pattern that reminded me of the spread of mycelium. This process of lamp construction took a lot of time, as I had to build some internal structures with aluminum and use weights to dry each side of the shade. The next challenge was how to hang the lamp. I ended up taking a lamp and harvesting the cord from it. I took the light fixture and screwed it in with a bulb just to test it. I decided to use a led bluetooth light bulb to get colors and effects to light up the mycelium. The light comes through the cracks in the mycelium and from the bottom. To secure the fixture, I poured more bio gel on top of the shape and fixture to connect them. Overall doing this project again I would strongly consider using a grow it yourself mix (from grow bio) as the substrates are accurately prepared for mold making specifically. I would also make even more iterations with more negative and positive space play/balance. However this lamp is a very cool first prototype to hopefully a lamp series once I get better results.
