Daniel Weddle

About Spore Room

Bloomington, Indiana, the town in which I attend college, experienced a large amount of PCB polluting until the 1970s.  The pollutants were heavily concentrated in a few areas that the government deemed superfund sites.  Despite an attempt by the government to contain the PCBs, they seeped into underground tributaries and spread into nearly every regional waterway and then through bio-accumulation into the wildlife.

Spore Room is an attempt to create a symbiotic relationship between individuals and the environment by secretly enlisting individuals to carry oyster mushroom spores, a species of mushroom that breaks down PCBs.  In Spore Room, Gallery spaces are humidified with a solution of water and oyster spores.  As patrons peruse the gallery space they are inundated with spores and upon leaving spread the spores throughout Bloomington.

The power of the piece lies not in an ability to completely rectify the PCB problem but rather in the investigation of man’s role in relation to nature. Often our race is cited as being parasitic or viral and though cynicism is important, it rarely offers solutions.  Spore Room at its core is an investigation in the use of technology to overcome man’s “parasitic nature” in favor of a symbiotic alternative.

"Spore Room"