SPORA. Rotting Unconscious

October 8 to December 12, 2025 ifk Arkade, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

A project of the ifk, International Research Center for Cultural Studies | University of Arts Linz in Vienna, in cooperation with the Co.Lab Mycelial Space / Sarah Kolb & Jutta Strohmaier.

The project focuses on books that deal with the subject of the unconscious.

As early as 1900, Sigmund Freud compared the processes of mushrooms and dreams. For him, the "tissue" of dream thoughts, like the subterranean "mycelium" of mushrooms, remains largely inaccessible to intellectual interpretation. C. G. Jung extends Freud's metaphor to a collective unconscious, while Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari map unconscious desire as a rhizomatic multiplicity. Contemporary feminist and ecocritical authors continue this line towards psychoecology and emphasize that the psyche also implies posthumanist relations.

The interdisciplinary collective SPORA, co-founded by Charlotte Janis and Roberto Dell'Orco, adds a further twist to this history of the unconscious by transforming ifk's underground exhibition space into a living, decaying library. At the center of the project are books dealing with the theme of the unconscious, literally digested and transformed by fungi, namely Pleurotus ostreatus. Over the course of the exhibition, fungal hyphae will wind their way through the pages, rearranging cellulose, ink and thoughts in equal measure - until edible fruiting bodies sprout along the spines of the books.

ifk.ac.at/calendar-detail/spora-rotting-unconscious

You are cordially invited to observe and accompany these exciting processes! We ask you to submit books that deal with the unconscious - perhaps with an enclosed note with your thoughts on the subject. You can also actively participate in the transformation of your books in workshops.

www.myce lial-space.net/call-for-books-rotting-unconscious-2025

We look forward to book donations sent to the following address by September 20, 2025:

ROTTING UNCONSCIOUS
P.O. Box 0025
Bennogasse 1
1080 Vienna
Austria

See you at the ifk Arkade from October 8, 2025, where you can watch your book grow - and maybe even taste it!