artists-in-labs: Nadine Schütz at WSL

On smelling and listening to fungal environments, a fungus producing blue pigment and the art of instructions

Nadine Schütz is a media-artist and master student in Curatorial Studies (Art Education) at Zurich University of the Arts. As part of the transdisciplinary Master Series residencies, she accompanied and exchanged with mycologist Artemis Treindl in her field research and became part of the research group on mycorrhizal fungi led by Martina Peter. Her talk is the end-presentation of this 3-month long exchange that took place between November 2023 and February 2024.

In her presentation she will talk about her experiences in the transdisciplinary exchange with scientists at WSL, give insights on how engaging with the world of fungi influenced her artistic practice and share her ideas for a future project that emerged out of this program. Starting from an interest in the acoustic and olfactory perception of fungi, her artistic process led her to observing and reflecting scientific instructions applied in research practices in the WSL labs. Following these observations, she proposes a set of alternative instructions that should build a bridge to public audiences and provide a tool for nature encounters that originate from sensory experiences.

The Master Series residencies are a collaboration of the artists-in-labs program and the Master Transdisciplinary Studies of Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK.