Events

Lichen Research Retreat- A Field Foray

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On the weekend of September 20th I got the opportunity to take a field excursion with the Lichen Likers and the Ohio Moss and Lichen Association at Camp Tippecanoe. During our time there, I really enjoyed exploring the camp trails with a close-looking lens. Oftentimes, I find myself focusing on the hike and distance while spending time outside so it was a nice change of pace to really sit with nature and notice the smaller things that one might otherwise overlook. Some of my favorite things that I found during our time spent outside included, Reindeer Lichen, Lacewing larva (which was wearing lichen on its back), and vibrant Liverwort specimen.

 I appreciated learning so much from the folks in the Ohio Moss and Lichen Association, from plants to animals, it was inspiring to meet people who are so passionate about nature. I was particularly interested in the way lichen–an organism that is rather subtle and can go unnoticed–was able to become such a prevalent part of so many people’s lives. The shared interest in Lichen, brought our groups of people to meet and foster friendships. I was overall left with not only new knowledge of the Lichen itself, but the different ways Lichen fits into different people’s lives. 

Finally, below is a map of the camp trails and each drawn star indicates where we explored to and found lichens

Learning Lichen Workshop with Robert Klips

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The Learning Lichen research group participated in two sessions of a hands-on biology workshop led by Ohio States’ Associate Professor Emeritus, and local lichen researcher, Robert Klips. Before taking a look at various samples of lichens under the microscope, Dr. Klips went over the basic structure of this symbiotic relationship. For instance, lichens are a symbiotic relationship, forming from fungi and algae. He compared it to a horticulture system, fungi farming the algae, and bacteria participating alongside these two organisms. Moving on to identification, we looked at the three forms of lichens and their growth types, Foilicose, Fruticose, and Crustose. Other organic structural terms we learned include, Apothecium, Soredia and Isidia, all of which are forms of reproduction. Apothecium being a structure that sexually reproduces while soredia and isidia structures asexually reproduce. During the workshop we examined the apothecia under the Microscope. They present as cup-like structures that often produce spores, and when the sample was sliced, we were able to see the algae cells. Seeing the vibrant plastids made it easier to visualize the inner workings and symbiotic relationship of lichen. There is much more to learn when it comes to lichens, but it was a great to learn about the foundations with Robert Klips. 

Klips provided a field guide educating any and all lichen liker on the species as it relates to Ohio’s geography and climate.

To demonstrate the lichen could be found anywhere, we looked for one! We didn’t travel far, walking to a nearby tree and discovering the Candleflame Lichen (Candelaria concolor) on a large tree.

Performing in Art in Odd Places

| Amy Youngs

The Fungal Entanglement project is going to New York City! The Lichen Likers have been selected for this year’s Art in Odd Places festival. Look for us along 14th Street in NYC and please do join us in our web, as we seek to discover lichens and other non-humans in the urban environment. We will be there on Saturday and Sunday, October 19 & 20th.

Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2024: CARE is curated by Patricia Miranda and Christopher Kaczmarek. Curatorial Manager: Valentina Zamora. Producer: Robin Schatell. Founder & Director: Ed Woodham.
Art in Odd Places is an annual festival that presents visual and performance art in public spaces along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC from Avenue C to the Hudson River each October. Active in New York City since 2005, AiOP aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. Using 14th Street as a laboratory, this project continues AiOP‘s work to locate cracks in public space policies and to inspire the popular imagination for new possibilities and engagement with civic space.

The Lichen Likers performing in this festival include: Alex Buchan, Amy Youngs, Anna Arbogast, Doosung Yoo, Jiara Sha, Madison Blue. We are part of a larger human organism, emerging from the Living Art & Ecology Lab at the Ohio State University. We are learning with lichens and drawing inspiration from their resilient, collaborative, and queer lifestyles. Embodying the symbiosis of fungi and algae, we create art that gives voice to this overlooked, communal lifeform. 

Fungal Entanglement: a lichen journey

| Amy Youngs

The Lichen Likers art research group spent the last year studying lichen and practicing creative methods for spreading and sporulating this knowledge. We are learning with lichens and drawing inspiration from their symbiotic lifestyles (a non-binary association of fungi and photosynthetic partners).

Symbiosis, interdependence, hospitality, and caring about our non-human kin were the key concepts for this Fungal Entanglement performance. We practiced audience participation, group movements, and focusing attention on the presence and lifestyles of lichen. The fabric sculpture represents fungi and the way that it grows flexible, symbiotic networks that enable mutually beneficial exchanges with plants and other species.

Fungal Entanglement artists: Anna Arbogast, Madison Blue, Alex Buchan, Xiuer Gu, Elias Marquez, Jiara Sha, Doo-sung Yoo, and Amy Youngs.

Photography: Dev Patel and Amy Youngs

See video documentation

Lichen Likers art exhibition

| Amy Youngs

In A Hotter House

An Earth Day art exhibition in a greenhouse on top of a parking garage.

The Biological Sciences Greenhouse mimics the warming effects of the Earth’s atmosphere to nurture a cornucopia of plant diversity and botanical research. On April 22nd from 8:00-10:00pm, it will also serve as a cultural hotbed to present an exhibition of phytophilic (plant-loving) art. This venue is uniquely situated atop a central parking garage on Ohio State University’s campus, carbon dioxide from the exhaust of humans and cars below drifting upwards to the plants who transform it into oxygen.

The Lichen Likers research group, the Living Art & Ecology Lab, seven invited local artists, and this semester’s Art & Science course (co-taught by faculty members Amy Youngs and Iris Meier) cordially invite you to experience their artistic creations at this plant-human meeting ground. In an age of rapidly changing climate, the greenhouse is not the only hothouse of our own making. The artists of this exhibition are united by the question, what solutions to our warming climate may we learn from paying attention to plants and their symbiotic partners?

Address: Biological Sciences Greenhouse, 332 W. 12th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43210. Directions.

Not sure how to get to the greenhouse? The Lichen Likers will be leading a group from Hopkins Hall to the Greenhouse as part of a participatory pre-show performance titled Fungal Entanglement: A Lichen Journey. Arrive on the steps of Hopkins Hall at 7pm for a meandering walk that will lead you to the show.

Video documentation of exhibition.

Lichen Creation and Ideation Workshop

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The narrative station within our second lichen workshop mainly focuses on the storytelling aspect of art we create such as poetry, prose, and documentation. Some important questions I wanted to ask within this project are ‘what are the messages that our environment is sending us?’ ‘How would lichen communicate?’ ‘What would lichen send to us in letters?’. To answer some of these questions I set up a ‘found poetry’ exercise where participants choose words and phrases from pre-written magazines and documents to then create something new. I was very excited at the many different creative outcomes people came up with. 

 

In my project letters to lichen I form letters that I imagine myself sending to the environment as well as what lichen would write. There are a collection of poems (including some participant work from the workshop) with a journalistic narrative to them in this piece. I have also recorded some of the poems as well in case you would like to listen to them.

Lichen Likers Workshop 1 Recap

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We had our first workshop on October 26th where we met with the artist, researcher, and author of “Common Mosses, Liverworts, and Lichens of Ohio”, Robert Klips. During our time with him, we learned about the dense network of lichen and how it functions by using symbiosis. We enjoyed a very memorable experience of passing around various species of lichen. Another notable moment in Klips’ presentation involved a model consisting of bread, ramen, and nuts to demonstrate the inner structure of lichen. Through learning about the lifestyle of lichen, we now better understand it.