The FUNgal Network was created as part of The Living Tree exhibition, transforming the lower level of the theatre into the hidden world beneath an ancient forest. While an indoor woodland occupied the space above, this installation existed below ground level — where roots meet fungi, and where the forest quietly communicates.

Inspired by real mycorrhizal networks, the piece tells the story of how trees and fungi collaborate: exchanging nutrients, sharing resources, and sending messages through vast underground systems. Through these networks, entire forests can behave as a single living organism. Older “mother” trees support younger ones growing in shade, warn neighbours of pests or disease, and help sustain life across generations.

This unseen world was brought to life through a playful, immersive landscape of oversized red, elf-cup mushrooms, connected by long, winding yellow tubes. These knitted, sprawling forms stretched across the room, over heads and around seats, echoing the tangled complexity of fungal networks beneath our feet. The tubes functioned as acoustic “talking tubes” — visitors could place their heads inside a mushroom and speak to someone elsewhere in the space, their voices travelling invisibly through the network.

At once tactile, theatrical and gently surreal, The FUNgal Network asks a simple question: if trees are already talking to one another, can we learn to listen? And if we could, what might they say — and how might that change the way we live alongside them?