Series

A Mycelial Residency

with Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez
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Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez: Fungal Teachings

A Mycelial Residency

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Let’s Become Fungal in David Horvitz’s 7th Avenue Garden

Volunteer Gardening Day

Active Cultures has embarked on a long-term collaborative residency with curator, writer, and researcher Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez. As the founder of the Future Materials Bank and Green Art Lab Alliance, Yasmine believes fungal networks can inspire new systems, thoughts, and behaviors. Her research emphasizes multispecies collaboration, symbiosis, alliances, non-monetary resource exchange, decentralization, bottom-up methods, and mutual dependency—mirroring the behavior of the mycelium.

Our shared vision is to cultivate a network that will bridge ecological art practices in Los Angeles and beyond, while focusing on developing her concept of mycelium as a model for collaboration and self-organization, advocating for climate justice. In Spring 2024, our partnership started with a week-long program of public activities in Los Angeles, which included gardening, cooking, and conversations with artist David Horvitz in his 7th Avenue Garden.

In 2025-2026, Active Cultures will continue its collaboration with Yasmine through a series of workshops, gatherings, resources and readings. These programs will be based on her research and book, Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts, and will explore the interconnectedness of ecological systems and how to integrate fungal wisdom into creative practices and everyday life. Yasmine is also interested in gathering ecological research on seasonal agricultural chronotypes and pyrophili—a species of fungi that have adapted to thrive in fire-affected soils, helping to restore balance in the aftermath of a wildfire.

 

Programs

Sunday, March 23, 2025
Fungal Teachings
The Audubon Center at Debs Park

Spend an afternoon with Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez to uncover the wisdom of fungi and how to incorporate it into our daily lives. Through interactive activities prompted by the Let’s Become Fungal! Oracle Cards, we’ll delve into the fascinating world of fungi and discover how these organisms can teach us about symbiotic relationships, cyclical calendars, and more. Each card offers insights, questions, meditations, and exercises to help us connect with these unmissable agents in our shared ecosystem.

Sunday, May 5, 2024
Let’s Become Fungal in The Garden
David Horvitz’s 7th Ave Garden

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez joined Active Cultures, David Horvitz, Shanhuan Manton, and many friends, collaborators, and the public for a regenerative community barbeque in David Horvitz’s 7th Avenue Garden. Together we cooked mushrooms in the ground oven, ate tacos, fed the garden with food scraps, and talked about fungi and crows. The afternoon included a durational session of gongfu cha, Chinese refined tea service (and garden foliage), with Shanhuan Manton. Artbook hosted a book signing, readings, and other activities to celebrate the launch of Yasmine’s book Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts.

Thursday, May 2, 2024
Volunteer Gardening Day
David Horvitz’s 7th Ave Garden

In a vacant lot next to his studio where a house had burned down, artist David Horvitz and landscape architects TERREMOTO began designing a garden. Hosting exhibitions, performance, readings, gatherings, and more, David calls it “… a garden of additions, of stories. Memories. Futures. The flotsam and jetsam of all things. A design always in progress and un-designing itself.” All were welcome to volunteer their time gardening alongside David Horvitz, TERREMOTO, Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez and Active Cultures. 

Wednesday, May 1
Idea Lab #2 at Metabolic Studio

Idea Lab is an on-going series of workshops that equip a diverse cohort of participants with specialized climate-focused knowledge. Together they explore strategies to address the pressing challenges of our time. Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez joined Metabolic Studio for a presentation and workshop, with additional one-on-one sessions on Friday May 3rd. Their guiding question is “How Do We Organize Like Mycelium?,” where they will apply a mycological lens to foster equitable relationships and solidarity in organizing and taking action to bring about a better future. 

Monday April 29, 2024
Mycelial Sharing with Exploring the Mycoverse
Arlington Garden in Pasadena

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez and the fungi-inspired community group Exploring the Mycoverse collaborated on a guided meditation and workshop in Arlington Garden in Pasadena.

About the Artist

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez is a curator, writer, and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology. She is the founder and director of the Green Art Lab Alliance (established in 2012); a network comprising seventy art organizations across Europe, Latin America, the United States, Canada and Asia and of the Future Materials Bank; a crowd-sourced database of sustainable materials for artists, designers and architects. The mission of both is to foster relationships and knowledge exchange that contributes to social and environmental justice, akin to the interconnected nature of mycelium. She is a self-proclaimed mycophile, interested in exploring the application of a mycological lens in defining fair models of collaboration and (self) organization. Her debut book, Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts, came out in 2023 and is being translated in over five languages. After a year long of conducting workshops based on the book, all the learnings and further thoughts were brought together in a deck of Oracle Cards, weaving together Yasmine’s many encounters from fungi-enthusiasts in Asia, Latin-America, Europe and the Caribbean.

Credits

Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez: A Mycelial Residency was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Our programs are also made possible through the generous support of the Board of Directors; the Members Circle Annual Fund; the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan; and by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture.