MYCO/ACCESS

A black and white pdf text-scan shows tall point whisps of grass embracing a wide capped, skirt-stemmed plump amanita mushroom. Beyond the grasses are maps of lichen, furry moss clothing rocks, with echoing needly shapes in the leaves peeking down from the top.
Amanita in context, pdf scanner ink print, Zoey Hart 2021

The fungal kingdom refuses to follow form. 

An ongoing artistic research endeavor, Hart’s Myco/Access has been presented in artist talks with the Museum of Art and Design and Civic Art Lab (NYC); Was the subject of an artist-in-residence season at Arteles Creative Center (Finland); And has been presented as an alt-text and accessibility workshop in collaboration with moira williams, at Genspace NYC and with NYC public school students. Hart continues to create multimedia visual work, critical writing, performances and participatory programs building upon themes of Myco/Access within the context of contemporary art and disability aesthetics.

Image descriptions of mushrooms written by artists contradict eco-industrial qualitative rating systems
Image Description: A mycelium lump sculpture [mycobaby2] seen against a stark black background. On the left,a view from above, on the right, mycobaby is presented atop a plastic faux-stone pedestal. Across the top are the words Diagno’sis: a technical description.

Phone-a-Fungi: A Mycological Helpline for Humanity

A toy rotary phone with a creepy smile plugs into the moss beneath a widely stretched red and white flecked cap of an amanita mushroom.

During a second seasonal residency at Arteles Creative Center (Finland), Hart opened the Phone-a-fungi mycological helpline as a portal of communication between human emotional landscapes, and fungal wisdom. (For now, an abbreviated portfolio of these dialogues can be previewed on Hart’s instagram @littlestnoodle. Post update with full images coming to this site soon)

Past Myco/Art Related Talks and Events:

ID: Black and white print images on beige newsprint show waves and blobs of fungi, spanning like a map along  the cross-section of a tree stump;  Clumped collections of white blobs. Small words in white font nestle into the images. The words are: sweetly, softening. 
Mycopocene: Rewriting the Future of Access

Civic Art Lab: Regenerative Futures, hybrid online and at Chinatown Soup, LES NYC, November 2021

Zoey Hart, Artist and Cultural Educator 

Hart will present interdisciplinary fieldwork collected during mushrooming season in northern Finland, offering a critical lens into the disability aesthetics of the fungal kingdom. 

Myco/Access & Art Party

with zoey hart and moira williams, Genspace NYC, May 2021

Folks, friends and microbial beings of all ages were invited to join artists zoey hart and moira williams in a zoom celebration of mushrooms and interdependence through the lens of disability artistry, science, eco-somatics, and Neurodivergent Alt Text.  2 hour virtual workshop included intro to alt text and image description, myco meditations and somatic movement practice with virtual backgrounds, artist talks with guest artists Jillian Crochet, Alex Salerno, and Ariel Ruvinskyand. Participation Guide, Access Doula, ASL interpretation and zoom closed captioning provided.

Disability Aesthetics and the Natural World 

with Alex Dolores Salerno, Zoey Hart and Jillian Crochet at MAD (Museum of Art & Design), NYC, May 2021

Program Description:

Join MAD Artist Studios resident Alex Dolores Salerno for a discussion with artists Zoey Hart and Jillian Crochet on the intersection of “the natural world” and disability aesthetics in art and visual culture. From mycelium to algae to coffee beans, natural materials are incorporated into the artists’ practices, which reject the Western and human-centric binary of the natural world versus the built world. This split into separate worlds alienates us from our dependency on the environment and our responsibility to non-human life. Beginning with artist talks and ending in a conversation and Q&A, the discussion will explore disability aesthetics, which speaks to the urgent need to care for our environments, as well as challenges what is referred to as “natural” or “normal” bodies, capacities, and ways of being. 

Myco Access Artist Talk and Myco Glossary call and response with zoey hart and moira williams, Genspace, Brooklyn 2021
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