Edinburgh Art Festival: Hayley Barker & Fungi Forms

Fungi perturbs me. Mould requires no explanation, mushrooms have the queasy quality of somehow looking ripe and withered at the same time, and the word "lichen" makes me itch between my fingers. So when I heard The Royal Botanic Garden was doing an exhibition on fungi, I figured I should pick a nice day to face my pet fear.

Soon after entering the quiet, light-filled Inverleith House, you’ll discover an abundance of tiny mushrooms "growing” on the walls. Most appear in bristly clusters, resembling unshaven hair; one near the staircase pokes its head out inquisitively. These mushrooms are realistic bronze casts by artist Jo Coupe, who titled the installation Infester, hinting at how nature erodes boundaries of domestic life.

Later areas of the exhibition adopt a softer tone, showing fungi in art, science, and cuisine. A fungi tasting guide serves as the main focus of the second room; if Infester uses encroaching mushrooms to prompt dark fears, the Aromatic Wheel of Fungi, by the Art and Fungi Project, sets mushrooms safely within the custody of our mouths. Dissecting fungi into minute taste categories, the wheel includes familiar notes like "vanilla" and "medicinal", but also notes like "my parents’ attic", "cheap mango hand lotion", and the rather fanciful "armpit of the Buddha".

Similarly enchanting are Amanda Cobbett’s embroidered mushrooms, which have been “painted” into being with sewing machines. The mushrooms, displayed in glass vitrines, have a cheerful, tutu-skirt prettiness that dispels any hint of medical austerity. Fungi rendered in needle and thread is a motif of the show; in another room you’ll find two gowns from Roots of Rebirth, Iris von Herpen’s fungi inspired haute couture collection. The lethal looking “Fibonacci dress”, made of violet silk organza, evokes more peculiar fungi species, the sort you might see in a dream and know instinctively not to touch.

Installation view of Fungi Forms. Photo: Sally Jubb, courtesy of RBGE

This interplay of nature and domesticity repeats in The Ringing Stone, Hayley Barker’s solo exhibition at Ingleby Gallery. Barker’s large, lush paintings (four of which measure over 2.5 metres tall) depict her Los Angeles home throughout the seasons, placing viewers at the foot of her garden steps, at the start of a shaded path. The height of the pieces means you need to look up at them, adding to the illusion of depth already created by Barker’s winding lines. You find yourself as though at an invisible threshold, softly and irresistibly induced into the garden’s depths.

Summer Valentine Path depicts the garden at twilight. Luminous white flowers, thickets of vegetation, a papery moon – everything is subdued, tea-toned, yet there is a sense of light slipping in and out; in Barker’s brushstrokes you hear the quiet, even rhythm of living things. As your eyes adjust to the dim, you see butterflies flitting in cloth-soft trees, hinting that morning is soon to arrive.

If Fungi Forms takes nature, with all its danger and deliciousness, into domestic space, The Ringing Stone does the opposite, leading you to the garden, inviting you into a gentle, intimate dialogue with the landscape. Both shows ask us to contemplate our place in nature. As Barker wonders, discussing her artwork: “How do we move through these many lives we live amongst with grace, respect, and dignity? How do we honour the earth and her many inhabitants over time and space?” Beautiful questions. This summer, I suppose, I might start by changing my mind about mushrooms.

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Hayley Barker: The Ringing Stone ran at Ingleby Gallery as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2024; Fungi Forms continues at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh until 8 Dec, open daily 10.30am-5pm

This article was commissioned as part of Edinburgh Art Festival's Emerging Writers programme