Nadia Vitlin

When the Mycelium Chalices first appeared, I laughed. The fungus could never fool me. That was whilst the alteration of the moonbeams was still a topic of debate online, and the edifices they put on the moon had only been visible to the naked eye for less than a generation. There were still people who remembered "the man in the moon". The Chalices were not just opportunistic, they were an omen: your world is on its way out, you'll see. I didn't know that, then. Then the tides began to shuffle, because the new shape of the moon - with its ever-growing Metropolises, its moondust mines, and air traffic - was altering its orbit. All the light pollution from the buildings on the dark side of the moon un-darkened it, and the moonbeams were altered beyond Earth's capacity to adapt. The coral spawned erratically, missing the ancient synchronised timing, and died off. That killed the turtles, the reef fish, and the octopuses. Once those died, there was nothing to feed the larger species and they died too. Sea urchins roamed the coral carcasses, a spiny, feasting hoard. Everyday, a new Mycelium Chalice popped up, liquid glimmering inside like the rainbow on a bubble.
When the ocean was dead, the estuaries clogged with matter and gunk. The rivers ran red with silt or cyan with bacteria. Our food chain began to collapse irreparably. The Mycelial Network, however, thrived in the muddy, rainy new world. Many began to eat of them and drink of their liquid. As a consequence, their human bodies had succumbed by the following day, as their consciousness transferred to the Network. Colonies of brightly-coloured fungi sprang up where starving households used to be, jewel-like and glowing with the liquid. New life, new purpose, in the Network.
The reign of Man has fallen, and taken life on earth with it. Do you want to survive, at a small cost to your corporeal identity? Will you drink from the Mycelium Chalice?

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Clay and acrylics, from approximately 15cm x 15cm to 40cm x 40cm.

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