Ascospora is a performance born from Museo del Hongo’s invitation to Alexandra Mabes to participate in the exhibition INFINITA, held in Museo Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna in 2019.

*Ascosporas are spores product of sexual reproduction, karyogamy and meiotic division in the Ascomycota fungus’ ascus. When germinating, they are capable of giving rise to a new independent fungus.

Ascospora is a performance that dialogues between individual and colective transformation. It aims to be not only a performatic exercise, but also a symbolic one for whom encarnates it. We work with the idea of transparency whithin the action, transparency of being, searching for honesty in the way we inhabit space. Exactly in that stillness, in that tranquility, in that transparency, does the sense of urgency emerges, sutil urgency that carries the interpreters to gather around the water, the ancient wisdom, the main ally and collaborator for the creation of the Fungi Kingdom, which today is endangered. This is how Ascospora becomes a prayer for water.

For its realization, the interpreters are scattered around the museum, sitting still in their places wearing red gowns and holding a copper sheet. While they move, the sheets make a sound like thunder. This sound guides them to each other, and together they start the procession towards water. Once they reach the fountain, they sit in the edge and dip their feet in the water. Slowly, they press the copper sheets against their faces, shpaing them into vases, that carry water as well as information of their own individuality.