Charlie Jones

BA Art and Design

My practice aims to highlight nature’s beauty and bring awareness to environmental issues using multi-media installations. This series of ceramic works and string installation celebrates the intricate below-ground network of mycelium and its connection to fungi. Mycelium is a mass of fungus made up of hyphae which not only provides nutrients to fruiting fungi but also connects with woodland tree roots in a communicative network in which nutrients are passed known as the ‘wood wide web’. This work offers visualisation of below and above the earth, contextualising the below-ground mycelial intricacy with the above-ground blue mushroom ceramics, allowing consideration for the notion of connectivity and growth and what that has come to mean in our own lives. This act of stopping and slowing down to consider the natural world amongst our man-made one connects us with nature, healing our relationship with the natural world, perhaps lost due to our modern way of life. Mycelium’s robust yet biodegradable properties are providing solutions to waste problems in industries such as fashion and construction as well as already being used as a sustainable substitute for plastics, packaging and even housing. This work uses art and science to highlight the vitality of mycelium’s role in nature and it’s potential in working towards a more sustainable way of life, allows us better understanding of nature’s power and reinforces the need for our action in the preservation of our planet in response to the climate change crisis.