MY-CO SPACE

Sculpture for the Exhibition tinyBE • living in a sculpture
Metzlerpark Frankfurt, Schaumainkai 17, 60594 Frankfurt am Main
26. Juni – 26. September 2021

Flora, fauna and funga form the most highly developed organism kingdoms on our earth. Plants, animals and fungi. They determine and shape the world that surrounds us, but are not perceived as partners, let alone active agents of us humans. Yet, through an examination of these and other organism kingdoms, it can be questioned again and again how collaborative interaction networks can actually enable sustainable coexistence while respecting planetary boundaries. Organismal cooperation across species boundaries has evolved co-evolutionarily and symbiotic systems dominate life on this planet. They enable the exchange and recycling of nutrients and thus ensure communal survival under planetary limited resources.

MY-CO SPACE is a collaborative work of the interdisciplinary ArtSci collective MY-CO-X, which was developed in collaborative cooperation with fungi (lat. mycota). It enables an artistic-scientific discussion about a future social significance of fungi for the creation of places and spaces.

MY-CO SPACE is an inhabitable sculpture reminiscent of a space station and transports the work of Galina Balashova (born 1931), the architect of the Soviet space programme, into the 21st century. Galina Balashova was responsible for the interior design of the manned spacecraft Soyuz and the Mir space station and was involved in the Apollo-Soyuz programme, the first peaceful US-Soviet cooperation in space travel. Her central design question in the 1960s-1980s was: „How can physical-technical structures and essential living functions be integrated in the smallest space in such a way that people can live and work under conditions of weightlessness and extreme physical stress?“

MY-CO SPACE as a sculptural habitat translates this question to today’s challenges of humanity: How can biological-technical structures and essential living functions be integrated in the smallest possible space in such a way that people can still live and work light-hearted under conditions of limited resources?“