At the Naturmuseum Südtirol in Bozen, fungi take center stage.
“Funga – A Hidden World” is not simply an exhibition. It is an immersion. A total environment. A manifesto in mycelium.
Look up. A chandelier-like constellation of petri dishes glows overhead, each one cultivating fungal life. Science becomes scenography. Biology becomes light.
Here, everything is fungus. Not only the subject. The structure. The supports. The surfaces that carry text and image. Content and container collapse into one coherent, living narrative.
Within this radical curatorial gesture, Ephea Pure Mycelium mats and Mogu Pluma panels are integrated as both material and message. An unexpected deployment. Removed from fashion and interior design. Repositioned within a cultural and scientific discourse.
Material Before Product
The Ephea Pure Mycelium mats are presented in their most essential state.
100% grown mycelium. Untreated. Unfinished. Untranslated.
Visitors are invited not only to observe, but to touch. To encounter the raw intelligence of a biological process before it is formalized into product. Before it is aestheticized. Matter as origin.
The Mogu Pluma panels articulate another dimension. Structural yet lightweight. Organic yet precise. They demonstrate how mycelium can operate simultaneously as infrastructure and expression.
On view, a series of cushions crafted in Ephea Uma. Objects that hold softness and research in the same gesture. Design as quiet biotechnology.
Fungi as Cultural Infrastructure
Fungi are neither plant nor animal. They exist in-between.
They connect. They decompose. They regenerate.
Beneath our feet, mycelium forms vast, invisible networks. Systems of exchange. Of reciprocity. Of survival. A silent architecture of interdependence.
From this biological intelligence emerge the materials developed by SQIM, with Ephea and Mogu. They do not mimic nature. They collaborate with it.
Within the exhibition, the fungus ceases to be specimen. It becomes language. Structure. Medium. Presence.
“Funga – A Hidden World” opened on 09.02.2026 under the direction of David Gruber, with curators Petra Mair and Margit Schweigkofler.
On view through February 2027 at the ground floor of the Naturmuseum Südtirol in Bozen.
An invitation to enter the fungal kingdom.
To reconsider materiality.
To witness life as design.
