Body Polyphonies: Investigating the embodied knowledge of the mycelium network to understand human resonances in sensations of support and belonging / Manuela Albrecht Manoel (2022)

This practice as research study focuses on an enquiry into the ways by which resonances in human sensations of support and belonging can be reflected upon, both in a group and as a group (McEwen, 2019), through an embodied understanding of the mycelium network. The practice intertwines layers of tactile and embodied relationships to mushrooms and the mycelium network, combined with explorations of embodiment of micro-politics through the Viewpoints Technique, as well as Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenological lens to orientation, to form a methodology that explores the intersection of somatics and politics (Albright, 2019). This methodology developed an ongoing interdisciplinary group practice that reflects precarity as something inherent to our time (Tsing, 2013) and unpacks the intimate process of familiarisation between bodies, when integrating individual identities into the experience of becoming mycelium. Hugely informed by practices of collective care within a collaborative group framework composed only of female and migrant movers, it explores somatic improvisational practices, embodied drawing, as well as gatherings outside the studio space, all of which led into the final durational performance installation, Body Polyphonies. Body Polyphonies called for mediums across the spectrum, offering windows through which the audience was invited to witness the bodily negotiations needed for the ecology to branch, fuse and tangle around the space, in the hope of igniting reflections on what is lacking (or not) within the current socio-political climate, and how Body Polyphonies can emerge from within these disturbing times.