Bioremediation I

Bioremediation I _ pink oyster mushrooms growing on Milton Friedman

Pink oyster mushrooms growing on Milton Friedman

Bioremediation I  is an attempt to symbolically detoxify, transform and destroy the institutions of the global financial system (in the form of portraits of people representing institutions such as ratings agencies, banks, governments etc,) with oyster mushrooms.

Oyster mushrooms have a wide range of detoxifying properties. They can clean up E.Coli in watercourses, have anti-viral properties and can transform a pile of diesel-contaminated soil into a thriving ecoystem supporting plants, insects, birds and animals in a matter of months. Their ability to clean up hydrocarbons makes them the ideal candidate to detoxify a financial system based on the cheap energy provided by fossil fuels. Oyster mushrooms are only one of many fungi that can destroy or transform toxins; for example, various fungi have been used for cleaning up the mess left behind by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Jane-Lawson_How-We-Got-To-Where-We-Are_6793-1024x681The paintings and mushrooms are exhibited along with How We Got To Where We Are, a 4-metre-long timeline showing the development of the global financial system.

Bioremediation-flyer-2Bioremediation-flyer-1 The Bioremediation flyer has a key to the portraits and some information about the mushrooms.

Dizzied by derivatives? See the Supplementary information.

DSC_1772_Portraits-after-deThe portraits after detoxification