Exeter exhibition explores fungi through sound, art and science

A new exhibition in Exeter will explore fungi through contemporary art, music, historical specimens and scientific collaboration. Living Labyrinths opens at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery on October 3 and runs until February 21. Curator Lara Goodband said the exhibition had taken five years to develop and reflected growing public interest in fungi.

One installation, The Intelligence Below, was created by musician, composer and DJ Jason Singh. He spent hours in two Devon woods using biofeedback sensors to measure electrical signals from mycelium, the networks through which fungi grow. He translated the signals into a soundscape.

Singh said the notes in the work represented voltage emitted by a living system. He described the project as an attempt to connect with other forms of life, although he acknowledged receiving unusual looks from people who saw him recording mushrooms in the woods. The exhibition will also display watercolour studies by Beatrix Potter, whose work as a mycologist is being recognised alongside her better-known literary career.

Nearby, artist Jo Pearl’s kinetic sculpture In Balance refers to Potteromyces asteroxylicola, a fungus named after Potter in 2023. Another work, Myco-Mother, 2026, was made by Gemma Anderson-Tempini with scientists from the University of Exeter’s MRC Centre for Medical Mycology. It maps the fungi living within the human body, using watercolours made from materials collected in Devon, including sandstone and soil.

The museum will also show Victorian fungal specimens such as stinkhorn and bird’s nest fungi. Goodband said Exeter’s collections and the region’s interest in fungi made it a fitting location for the exhibition.