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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/mushroom-kingdom-mycelium-manufacturers-hermes-cadillac/>
"It wouldn’t be wrong to say Sam Shoemaker crossed the ocean on a mushroom.
This August, the Californian artist launched his 14-foot kayak off Catalina
Island and paddled for 12 hours across the 26.5-mile Catalina Channel to San
Pedro. He says when he lost strength during the journey, a fin whale appeared
and accompanied him. But even more astonishing is the brownish-white boat
itself: “a boat made entirely from a single mushroom growing outside my
studio,” Shoemaker explains — the world’s largest mushroom boat.
He built it from wild
Ganoderma polypore collected near his LA studio,
propagated in a hemp-and-sawdust substrate for about four weeks, molded into
kayak form and dried until it became “a strong, hydrophobic and inert,
cork-like material.” Mycelium, the interconnected root network of a fungus such
as
Ganoderma polypore, can grow to hundreds of acres. The boat was sealed
with locally sourced beeswax, using no synthetic materials.
Shoemaker’s multiyear project wasn’t commercial — he is simply interested in
demonstrating mushrooms’ potential. His invention is part of AquaFung, a term
coined — and a movement inspired — by artist Phil Ross that hopes to one day
replace Styrofoam and other materials that go into water with fungi, as part of
the nonprofit Open Fung. In their quest, Shoemaker and Ross are members of a
sprouting global community of artists, engineers, high-end designers and
environmentalists, intent on producing sustainable inventions from mushrooms."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
