Maddening Mushrooms and Reproductive Politics: A deep dive into Diana Policarpo’s practice

Diana Policarpo, Ciguatera, 2022, Multimedia installation

From maddening fungi to patriarchal powers; and LSD to reproductive politics: the focuses of Diana Policarpo’s practice may at first glance seem decidedly disparate. Yet, just as fungi create complicated hyphal networks to metabolise their resources; she weaves her speculative transdisciplinary research into an intricate web of meaning: revealing her themes to be integrally entangled. Diana Policarpo’s seminar was part of our Expeditions seminar series.

Aptly then, the common thread that connects her recent projects—Death Grip (2019), Nets of Hyphae (2021), and Liquid Transfers (2022)—has been the socio-economic impacts of the fungi genera Cordyceps and Claviceps.

Cordyceps are parasitic fungi that primarily infect insects, replacing their host’s tissue with mycelium from which they grow fruiting bodies. They can also affect their host’s behaviour, causing the insect to move somewhere better suited to release fungal spores. As such, the fungi consume their hosts both physically and mentally. This becomes socially compounded by their significance to Chinese Traditional Medicine, in which their consumption is believed to be both mentally and physically nourishing. 

Though Diana’s research into Cordyceps was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Death Grip was born of it, in which she examines the fungus’ exploitative extraction, and the wider social metaphors this highlights. Unable to travel to Nepal to continue her research, Diana found a fascinating surrogate in Claviceps. Though these genera are distinct, Claviceps are similar to Cordyceps in their physical and psychological manipulation of their hosts. Of the Claviceps genus, perhaps its best known species is C. purpurea, or ‘ergot;’ a fungus that parasitises grains, and maddens those who consume it. 

Ergot has many faces. From bewitching to medicinal; enlightening to demonic: its long history of human consumption—intentional or accidental—has firmly enshrined it in our lore. The excessive consumption of ergot results in ‘ergotism,’ also known as ‘Saint Anthony’s Fire,’ which causes a number of serious pathological syndromes including hallucinations; irrational behaviour; convulsions; and can lead to gangrene; loss of limbs; or even death. 

Diana Policarpo, Death Grip (2019), 15 Multi-channel audio installation synchronised with 2 digital 3D animations

Notwithstanding the effect of its’ overconsumption, controlled doses of ergot have been used since the Middle Ages to induce abortion, and quell postpartum bleeding. Such prescriptions would have been administered by independent female healers and midwives. In its abortive properties, ergot represented freedom of choice in Mediaeval reproductive politics. However, this served only to compound the suppression of patriarchal capitalism, which sought to disallow reproductive autonomy. 

These independent women’s use of ergot, and the ‘bewitchment’—convulsions and irrational behaviour—that afflicted those who over consumed it, were instrumental in fuelling the Mediaeval witch hunts. The cultural connection between the subjugation of these women, and the rise of capitalism, is a theme examined at length in our Journal post, Why Eve Should’ve Ditched Adam: Witchcraft & Capitalism in Mediaeval Europe.

Diana explores the role of ergot in the witch trials in Nets of Hyphae, an exhibition curated by Stephanie Hessler for the Galeria Municipal do Porto, Portugal. In Nets, Diana highlights the connection between ergotism and the patriarchisation of reproductive health; from the healer’s hands to the obstetrician's forceps. 

Drawing another connection in her metaphorical hyphal network, Diana’s more recent Liquid Transfers looks to ergot’s contemporary renaissance. During the 20th century, chemist Albert Hofmann used the fungi to synthesise a powerful psychoactive hallucinogenic drug called lysergic acid diethylamide, better known by its acronymic epithet: ‘LSD.’ Colloquially called ‘acid,’ this drug is now synonymous with contemporary mid-century counter-cultural movements. In Liquid, Diana explores how the drug was weaponised in “the case of the cursed bread.” 

Diana Policarpo, The Oracle, 2020, HD video

The “case” in question was an outbreak of ergotism that occurred in 1951, in Pont-Saint-Esprit, southern France, which infected 500 inhabitants. Though it has been attributed to ergot contamination in the town’s grain supply, investigative journalist H.P. Albarelli has speculated that the outbreak was in fact orchestrated by the American government as an experiment in enemy mind control. 

Like Nets, Liquid continues the critical commentary of patriarchal power that is integral to Diana’s practice. On a literal level, this is exemplified by the role of ergot, both historically and contemporarily. Yet when examined on a more fundamental level, fungi can metaphorically metabolise and reform concurrent systems of hegemonic control, and suggest novel ways to interact with the world.

dianapolicarpo.com