Super Organism
Suzette Bousema
Invisible to the naked eye, but threatened by our activities.
How can we tap into the network of an underappreciated but crucial organism?
Mycorrhizal fungal networks are the largest living systems that ever existed on Earth and play a crucial role in ecosystems, carbon storage as well as our very existence. Commonly described as the ‘internet’ or the ‘brain’ of the forest, almost all plants are connected through these below-ground fungal networks.
Often referred to as a form of communication, plants ‘trade’ carbon with the fungal network, improving access to nutrients, minerals and water. More than half of the carbon processed by plants during photosynthesis passes through mycorrhizae and is stored in soil.
This ancient symbiosis between plants and fungi is threatened by human activities, such as the use of fertilizers and pesticides, deforestation and change in land use.
When I first discovered this collaboration between plants and fungi, I noticed how we tend to compare it to human structures, such as the internet or the brain. To a certain extent this helps us to stimulate empathy with, yet simultaneously limits our understanding of this relatively unknown phenomenon.
This multimedia project explores how we can experience mycorrhizae without anthropomorphizing it, yet still connect to this hidden network, using all our senses.
This project is achieved in collaboration with soil scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia (Leiden University & Hasselt University) and PhD students (Leiden University) Riccardo Mancinelli, Weilin Huang & Chenguang Gao. The project is supported by Fentener van Vlissingen Fonds, MIAP Foundation and Mondriaan Fonds.
Suzette Bousema (NL, 1995) visualizes contemporary environmental topics in collaboration with scientists. Planetary conditions and our place in them are the starting point in her work; the way humans interfere with nature and how we relate to the Earth on an individual level. She works interdisciplinary with photography, printmaking, glass blowing, weaving, sound, smell, and organic materials such as seaweed.
Suzette Bousema graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (NL) in 2019. She exhibited at a.o. museum Singer Laren (NL), Foam (NL), Art Rotterdam (NL), Photoville (NY), Fotobok Festival Oslo (NO), COP 25 (ES) and The Scientific Center Kuwait (KW). Her work has been published in a.o. NRC (NL), de Volkskrant (NL), Foam magazine (NL), Harper’s Bazaar (NL), Financial Times (UK), Der Spiegel (DE), Die Zeit (DE) and Liberatión (FR).
Climate Archive
What if ice that has been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years could be used to predict the future of our climate?
For a better understanding of climate, this project employs ice cores—tubular samples of ice—from Antarctica and Greenland as a tool for plainly observing climate change.
By exploring how tangible objects, such as ice cores, serve to improve our understanding of unobservable concepts such as global warming, these objects not only become tools for scientific research, they become tools of wonder and enlightenment.
Since 1930, scientists have been drilling up ice cores looking for clues about the climate. As new snowfall accumulates every year, pressure caused by the weight of the snow creates layers of ice. Over time, tiny air bubbles form and become trapped within. When the ice cores are removed, the air bubbles within the various layers contain the same composition as when they froze—including greenhouse gasses.
Studying this air, scientists observe the history of climate change from ice ages to interglacial periods as far back as 800,000 years, contemplating not only the climate’s past, but setting out to predict its uncertain future.