Mycoremediation 2050 (2025)

Scientists have developed software models tracking the flow of plastic pollution across the planet, projecting that over 1.3 million tons of plastic waste will pervade ocean and land environments within the next two decades without global intervention. By 2050, plastic may outweigh marine life in Earth’s oceans. As oceans function as the planet’s primary oxygen producers, this reality threatens Earth’s capacity to sustain life. Phytoplankton and seaweed, responsible for absorbing CO₂ and releasing oxygen, depend on stable and thriving ecosystems.

Current waste disposal methods intensify this crisis. Landfills allow plastic to seep into soil and water systems, while incineration releases toxic greenhouse gases, damaging ecosystems and the ozone layer. The resulting increase in UV radiation disrupts plant and animal life, pushing environments toward instability and uninhabitability. What is necessitated is forward thinking in any form.

My practice has long engaged with imagining these dystopian environmental futures. After creating this dystopian body of work, a feeling of devastating hopelessness led me to research what could be done to turn this inevitable disaster around. I discovered that certain mushroom species can degrade plastic, some consuming plastic entirely, others breaking down polymers such as polyurethane into organic matter. Mycoremediation, refers to the fungal process of decomposing environmental contaminants. This presents a compelling framework for rethinking waste disposal. Over 50 species possess this capacity to decompose plastic, many already present in everyday environments.

Mycoremediation 2050 proposes a speculative future where fungi become a global system for plastic waste disposal. The installation emerges through shaping, reimagining, and rewiring what was once thrown away. Discarded plastic bottles are transformed into illuminated mushroom forms, watching plastic shift into something softer, stranger, organic, with light finding its way through every piece and pulse. Each mushroom operates as part of a connected system, communicating through an imagined mycelial network. Their pulsing light mimics a shared breath, signals moving between forms, suggesting exchange, awareness, and collective life both beneath and above the surface.

The work considers plastic not as waste, but as material waiting for another life, not an ending, but something learning how to transform. In this imagined future, mushrooms inherit what we leave behind, softly breaking it down, quietly rebuilding natural environments. These mushroom forms exist as futurities made to glow, a vision of repair grounded in both speculation and possibility.

The exhibition creates a space for solution-oriented thinking, moving beyond purely dystopian narratives. The mushroom forms act as reminders of the beauty and life-sustaining forces within natural systems, while their plastic materiality underscores the urgency for intervention. Mycoremediation 2050 ultimately asks how we might reconsider waste, and what it means to imagine a future where natural processes and human systems work together to sustain life.