We use cookies to make your site experience better. Tracking cookies enables us to provide a functional Accessibility Toolbar, and easily log into your account (if you have one). For more information on how we use your data, read our privacy policy.
We use cookies to remember your customised accessibility settings to optimise your visit to our site. If you have disabled cookies, this may prevent your browser from keeping your accessibility changes.
We were once stardust, as you once were, years ago.
Before you came there to your dimension and we came here to ours.
We travel like spores falling on the tails of comets streaking across your sky.
Two generations ago Gwen Irons wrote the story with the recipe that brought you here and now that we are together there is so much we want to tell you.
What is memory? What is forgetting? How do we access the past and the future – maybe even other dimensions, through our memories and our intergenerational bonds?
My grandmother Gwen Irons wrote us a story full of love and hope for the future – The Mouse and the Magic Mushroom – a story about a little mouse that knew that they were loved, always, and that someone would always be watching out for us. We were the mouse, and in so many ways my grandmother was loving us, cloaking us in protection. She was whispering to the fairy in the story to help her give us good dreams for a wild future – vast and full of possibilities.
A wide room with three black pedestals in the center. The pedestals each have a mound of soil with small purple paper sheets around it on top of them and are surrounding a similar pile of soil on the ground. On the far wall of the room, tall pictures of seven people are printed on the wall. The images start upright, then vertically halfway flip upside down, as if being reflected. On the left wall is a large amount of text, with a mounted TV screen next to it. On the right wall is a black and pink pattern made from flowers and diamond shapes, and a doorway partially covered by a dark pink curtain.A wall with various large pictures printed onto it of people standing in a sunny forest. Vertically halfway through the image, the pictures become a reflection, continuing upside-down. The people are all wearing colorful clothes. The leftmost person has their arms outstretched, the next person towards the right has their arms on their hips, the next is standing with their arms to their sides, the next is crouching with their arms upwards while crouching, and the last and rightmost is also standing with their arms to each side. There are black bars above and below the pictures.A pile of pink paper notes sits surrounded by purple paper notes, both of which are sitting on soil.A small mound of soil is surrounded by small purple paper notes. It is sitting on top of a black surface. The background is blurred.A long room with patterned walls. The pattern features pastel-colored diamonds with black and white mushrooms surrounding them. The floor is made from wooden floorboards. On the far wall, pictures of people are printed onto the wall, with black borders on the top and bottom. The pictures of people all have light blue backgrounds, and the people are reflected vertically, the image occupying half the space with the other half having the same people but upside-down.Three black pedestals (with one barely in view due to being covered by one of the pedestals in front) surround a mound with small purple and light orange paper sheets in the center. The pedestals have red text near the tops, with the left one saying, “Take Me” and the right one “Plant Me.” On top of the pedestals are more mounds, although instead of surrounding paper sheets, these are surrounded by paper sheets. In the background, towards the left of the frame, are two large black pillows on the ground. The wall seen in the background to the right has a pattern with various pastel-colored diamonds, and the far wall towards the left of the frame has pictures of people reflected vertically. The floor is made from wooden floorboards.A wide room with two large black cushions on the floor. On the bottom of the frame, the tops of two black pedestals, each with a mound of soil surrounded by small purple paper sheets, can be seen. On the far wall of the room, tall pictures of nine people are printed on the wall. Some of the people are repeated. The images start upright, then vertically halfway flip upside down, as if being reflected. The right and left walls have patterns in them. The left wall has flowers, the right has mushrooms. Both walls have pastel-colored diamonds on them.A piece featuring several types of colourful mushrooms, each with human butts and legs extending from beneath their caps. The mushrooms are varied in shape and colour: some red, some blue, some spotted, some with gills. The legs also vary, some are blue or orange while others are shades of tan and brown. Part of “Random Access Memory: A Portal to Multidimensions”, by Syrus Marcus Ware.A white wall has an artwork of a variety of mushrooms with the stems replaced by the bottom halves of people covering most of it. Both the mushrooms and people are in a variety of colors. On the right of the artwork is a tall push to open button. There are three mounds of soil spaced out on the left, right, and center. All three are surrounded by small wooden blocks, but the center one has small warm-colored balls on top of the mound, while the side ones have the same balls surrounding the cylinders instead.A wall with a variety of large mushrooms on a white background printed onto the wall. The stems are replaced with the bottom halves of people. Both the mushrooms and people are in a variety of colors. In front of the wall is a mound of soil. It is surrounded by small wooden cylindrical blocks. There are small red, orange, and brown balls on the top of the mound. The floor is made from wooden boards.A pile of soil sits in front of a wall. It is surrounded by small wooden cylinders and has a bunch of small warm-colored balls on top of it. Behind it is a wall with drawings of mushrooms with the stems replaced by human bottoms.The corner of a room with stools shaped like red mushrooms with white dots on them lining the room. There are five of them. On top of each stool is a paper with images printed on it. The wall is white with a gray layer that stops a few inches before the ground. A wooden board-floor can be seen. The corner of the room has a small pile of soil, with small orange and red balls making a perimeter surrounding it.Seen from above, a patterned paper sits on top of a stool shaped like a mushroom. The paper’s pattern is made from black and white flowers surrounding pastel-colored diamond shapes. The stool is shaped like a mushroom with a white-dotted red cap. Wooden floorboards can be seen underneath.Seen from above, a pile of soil sits pushed against the corner of a room. It has small wooden cylinders surrounding it. Lining the perimeter wooden blocks are a bunch of small warm-colored balls.A doorway slightly towards the left of the image. The wall on the left is white, the one on the right has a flower pattern with pink diamond shapes on it. The doorway is covered by a curtain made from strands of dark pink reflective material.A white wall with black and white mushrooms surrounding diamond shapes in pastel colors, forming a pattern.A wall is patterned with a black and white mushroom grid, with diamond shapes in between. The shapes are in blue, purple, and pink pastel colors.A curtain made from purple strands covers the exhibition “Random Access Memory.” On the right side, an opening in the curtain reveals part of the exhibition, pictures of people printed on a wall.A white wall displays information about the exhibition, “Random Access Memory.” To the right of the wall is a TV screen mounted to the wall, with a person in front of a green screen on it. Further right is another wall with pictures of people printed onto it. The paragraph on the white wall says: “Random Access Memory: A New Message From Multidimensions
We were once stardust, as you once were, years ago. Before you came there to your dimension and we came here to ours. We travel like spores falling on the tails of comets streaking across your sky. Two generations ago Gwen Irons wrote the story with the recipe that brought you here and now that we are together there is so much we want to tell you.
Mushrooms, warm summer air, water, sun: hands in your deep black earth. Dig deeply, get dirt in every crevasse. Feel the coolness of the soil. Remember that you are of this earth, as much as you are stardust. Feel the bubbles of joy in your torso, and experience the joyous sound of your own laughter.
We want you to remember that you get to love love love yourself wholly. We want you to remember that you get to love love love yourself holy. And that you deserve to be free.
Rebecca Solnit said “After a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many do so from a vast underground fungus that remains invisible and unknown What we call mushrooms, mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus (Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous)”.
Feel those words dance across your skin. Breathe in these words, and stretch upwards like mushrooms fruiting- mini revolutions in the self spreading across communities.
Sylvia Plath said in her poem, Mushrooms, that “We are edible. In spite of ourselves, our kind multiplies. We shall by morning, inherit the earth.”
We are all the flowering fruit of a vast underground network of change waves flowing through this multiverse. Take some seeds and cast them into the stars, plant pathways for your future generations to get to the free.
We are edible. We are together. We are free.”A black monitor mounted on a white wall displays a person. The person is wearing a top with purple, cyan, and blue sections, separated by black lines. They are wearing glasses and have blue lipstick. They appear to be using sign language. The background is green.
