Fungoj means fungus in Esperanto. Kombucha is not a fungus, and all the bushcraft items (sleeping bag, hammock, and tarp), as well as the skin map, are not usable – nothing is meant to be more certain than the feeling.
I call kombucha my Daughter and partner with Her throughout the nine-month development process. I catch up with Her, stroke Her, feel Her, and rescue Her. I capture the ritualistic and soothing gesture of brewing, and as I touch Her, She dissolves my epidermis. We unite with each successive contact. I trust the cycles She experiences. I know that no matter what form She takes, She will survive everything. We go through peculiar stages of bonding. When She is young and maturing, I care for Her, ritually feed and move Her. Her wet form resembles human skin.
Later, She decides to take in more creatures (fruit flies), and they feed on Her fluids in a cycle that ends when she grows up and dries. They leave only the shells of their existence that can be spotted, for example, on a sleeping bag.
In the process, we get thrown out of our previous academic shelter. I put up a fight, ask for help from people close to me, and transport her to my Mom in the countryside. From then on, my Mom takes care of her Grandchild.
When She is grown, She gives me a home, I shape her into form and give her symbols – braid and armor. The braid in the Slavic tradition is cut across the threshold at the moment of marriage and is also a symbol of strength in our and many other cultures. Strength and self-sufficiency become an integral part of the work. The form is also performative – I wear armor and a braid made of kombucha during the presentation.
The project came about when I was having trouble finding a home, so I grew a house myself. A home without oppression and hard frames, a home of breath and process. Her skin, like humans, protects the interior from danger. A dried biofilm can create another kombucha setting at any time. She is asleep but wakes up when She wants to. Counterbalancing the constant life is a black, charred element that has died from contact with metal.
Fungoj is a symbiosis of four organisms: yeast, bacteria, insects and humans. By letting go and flowing, each has given itself a home. Symbiosis seems to us something distant, something that happens there, not between us. And it’s a phenomenon that occurs everywhere, building structures and forming society. An important part of the work is the path of creation, relationship and confrontation with reality, the struggle for oneself.