Growth in the shadows (2025)
Commissioned for Thinking together: Exchanges with the natural world, Bundanon
Wardian cases, biofeedback modular synthesis, fungi and other natural materials from the Bundanon landscape, UV lights, printed glass.
‘Growth in the shadows (2025) reveals a tiny part of the vast wealth of information that humans often overlook, reflecting a complex world of connectivity and reciprocity that lies directly beneath our feet. Working with ecologists and Bundanon’s natural resources team, the artist explored the world of mycelium and fungi that thrive in this landscape, focusing on the expansive knowledge-sharing that fungal networks provide other species. Based on a series of site visits, de Souza’s new installation brings the outside in, displaying elements of a complex ecosystem through the lens of human technologies, including written language, diagrams and historical scientific design. Even the electrical impulses of the mycelium are translated into a human electronic soundscape through live audio biofeedback.
Keg de Souza creates social and spatial environments that often draw on the histories of colonialism and themes of displacement, sharing lesser-known histories of plants, people and places. De Souza’s research for this new commission explored the historical transport of plants during Great Britain’s colonisation of much of the globe, particularly the invention of the Wardian case in the 1830s. This enclosed case design revolutionised the transport of live specimens, influencing botanical history and the course of international economics and trade’.
Scroll down for short clip to hear an audio sample.
