The Lichen Museum 2015

The Lichen Museum draws inspiration from five radical
qualities of the lichen organism (and parallel
considerations for human becoming):

—two-ness
(our “I” is also a “we”)

—resistance to cultivation
(we can’t be reduced to use-value)

—site-specificity
(our bodies locate us)

—slowness
(we learn and grow by cultivating powers of attention)

—close association with the mineral world
(we are connected to the rock we devour)

With lichen as muse, the museum (thanks J.C.!) solicits
and develops actions and perspectives that explore ideas about individuality, labor, relationships to place, and
non-human temporalities, and it raises questions about
human dominance of the material world.

Shelly Benson, President of the California Lichen Society, demonstrates morphology with a stuffed lichen prop. Images of people taken during two public lichen walks at the Marin Headlands, 2014, for which Shelly Benson was our expert guide. Fourth image from left credited to Beth Ferguson. Thanks!