Afkar
Idées, Ideas
Collection of concepts and experiences for therapeutic art.
Mycelium Project
Art - Gardening - Healing
Mycelium is defined as the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments.
Over time and with the right conditions, it can break down organic matter, harden and create a living organic sculpture.
Art Ritual
Creating sculptures using Mycelium is similar to gardening due to its living organic features.
The Mycelium project is a collection of art rituals that rely on Mycelium to serve therapeutic and cathartic purposes.
It relies on gardening's therapeutic effects as well as symbolic materials and objects that can be digested, destroyed or bound together by the Mycelium, thus "healing" them.
Mycelium Hearts
Fill a heart shaped mold with mycelium.
Gather pictures that make your heart ache.
Cut them up.
Add them to the mycelium.
Water it.
Water it again.
Store it in a place that's safe, dark and humid.
Water it.
Wait.
Listen to your heartbeat.
Listen to your heart beat.
Water it.
Imagine your heart beating inside of your chest.
Water it.
Water it again.
Imagine your heartstrings.
Water it.
Picture your heartstrings strung like a harp.
Imagine your heartstrings breaking.
Water it and wait.
Wait.
Picture a white mushroom.
Imagine it growing in your heart.
Water it.
Feel white roots growing.
Water it.
Imagine them wrapping around your heartstrings.
Wait.
Feel your heartbeat.
Water it.
Visualize the pictures you put inside the heart.
Let the heart heal them.
Let the heart heal.
Believe in the heart's ability to heal.
Mycelium Lungs
Fill a lung-shaped mold with mycelium.
Add pictures and objects that make it hard for you to breath.
Water it.
Water it again.
Store it in a place that's safe, dark and humid.
Water it.
Inhale.
Wait.
Water it.
Exhale.
Take a breath.
Take another one.
Let the mycelium mend the lungs.
Breathe.
Don't forget to breathe.
Mycelium Egg
Crack an egg.
Empty it of its contents.
Fill it with mycelium.
Think about your failures.
Visualize them.
Look at the crack in the egg.
Add pictures and memories of your failures to the mycelium.
Water it.
Wait.
Look at the egg.
Remember how fragile it is.
Cradle it.
Water it.
Wait.
Water it again.
Cradle it.
Comfort the egg.
Comfort yourself.
Wait for the egg to harden.
You will too.
Mycelium Dummy
Look at your hands.
Touch your knuckles with your fingertips.
Hold the hands of the dummy.
Look it in the eye.
Think of the places of your body where you've been hurt.
Look at them on the dummy.
Visualize the bruises on the dummy.
Mark the dummy if you can't visualize them.
Stuff the bruises on the wood with Mycelium.
Water it and wait.
Imagine the dummy's bruises covered in white.
Thin white filaments.
Wrapping around the bruises on the wood.
Keep on watering it.
It will harden into a white armor.
A living armor.
Birthed from bruises.
Lebanon Project
Art - Collage - Reconstruction
Reconstruct
&
Heal
Collage & Mycelium
The Lebanon Project is a series of simple artistic and material manipulations that aim at easing what is now being refferd to as the "Lebanese Collective Depression".
(see Inas Sherri for "Asharq Al-Awsat")
These projects are targeted towards Lebanese people in order to give them a creative outlet centered around reconstructing and healing from the trauma caused by the destruction they have faced and are still facing as a country.
Multimedia Collages
Digital, Paper, Glass
Gather images, memories and objects of the Beirut blast.
Cut them up.
Shred them.
Decompose them.
Destroy them.
Lay them out in front of you.
Take a break.
Now it is time to create something new.
Visualize Beirut before it shattered.
Visualize what you've just destroyed.
Take what's left.
Cherish it.
Reorganize it.
Bring order and logic to the chaos.
Fight chaos with chaos.
Destruction with destruction.
And now create.
Mycelium for Lebanon
Regenerative Material for a Broken Country
1,500 LBP Mycellium
Stop thinking about the news.
Stop checking on the currency's devaluation.
Breathe.
Sanitize an old wallet of yours.
Leave only 1500 LBP in it and one dollar bill in it.
Imagine that one dollar is still worth 1500 LBP.
Breathe.
Now fill it with mycelium and water it.
Wait and breathe.
Picture yourself buying one man'kouche for 1000 LBP from a dekken.
Now buy a BonJus for 500 LBP.
Imagine yourself eating it under the sun in Beirut.
Taste the thyme and the sucrose.
Say thank you to the street vendor.
Say "I'm glad I had 1500 LBP on me."
Water the mycelium.
Breathe.
Hope for the best.
Just breathe and hope for the best.
Mycelium Cedar Tree
Expats and citizens,
Stop what you're doing.
Go to the closest Cedar tree.
Pick some twigs.
Pick some cones.
Pick some leaves.
Take them home.
Gather pictures from Lebanon.
The Lebanon you want to go back to.
Cut them up.
Picture this Lebanon.
Picture a cedar tree standing tall.
Picture a cedar tree standing tall in the middle of our flag.
Imagine its smell.
Imagine its height.
Imagine it standing tall.
Standing tall for 1000 years.
Standing tall for 10 000 years.
Standing tall through the thick and the thin, the blood and the tears, the beauty and the horror.
Just water it.
Just hope for it.
Imagine this tree growing inside of you.
Gather mycelium and aluminum paper.
Mix the cedar, mycelium and pictures.
Spray water on it.
Imagine the cedar tree.
It's growing inside of you.
Mold the mixture in its shape.
Close the mold and leave a hole.
Children of the Cedar, we are children of the Cedar. Feel it standing in our backs, breathing with our lungs, as silent and eternal as our souls.
Water it.
Hope for it.
Make it grow.
Make it breathe.
Make it stand.
Even if it's hanging by a thread.
Even if it's fragile now.
It will stand again.
It will breathe again.
It will grow again.
Yes it can.
Just water it,
Yes it will.