Ep. 100: Mycoworks - Mycelium Leather, Reishi & the Future of Fashion (feat. Phil Ross)

Today on Mushroom Hour we have the privilege of interviewing Phil Ross of MycoWorks. A pioneer in cultivating living materials for art and design, Phil began using mycelium in the 1990s as a medium for sculpture. Almost three decades on, Phil and his team of artists are now complemented by engineers, biologists, production specialists and material scientists in bringing the first Fine Mycelium™ material, Reishi™, to the world. Anyone who sees his work or hears him speak, can’t help but have their mind set alight by a spark of inspiration. Phil is one of those unique individuals who can take something ancient, like fungi, and derive novel uses for it that not only shift how we see fungi, unlock new ideas and new fields of discovery, but really expand humanity’s entire “realm of the possible”. His lifetime of work with mycelium hints at the vast ocean of infinite opportunities that await humanity as we explore kingdom fungi.    TOPICS COVERED:   Cooking as a Primer on the Practicum of Biotechnology  Push and Pull of Tropisms  Fungi as a Cypher to Understand Nature  From Forests to Graffiti - Learning to “Read” the Environment  Polypore Inspirations for Reishi™ Fine Mycelium Leather Products  Indigenous Use of Mycelium Leather  Medicinal Qualities of Reishi Mushrooms  Cultural Responses to the Gross and the Grotesque  Fashion as a Means of Communication  How MycoWorks Creates Reishi™ Fine Mycelium Leather  Mycelium Sheet Polymer & Leathercraft Learning Curves  Scaling Up to the Future of MycoWorks  The Transformation of Phil Ross  Future of Mycelium Materials   EPISODE RESOURCES:   Mycoworks website: https://www.mycoworks.com/  Mycoworks IG: https://www.instagram.com/mycoworks/  Louis Pasteur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur  Claude Levi-Strauss "The Raw and the Cooked": https://www.amazon.com/Raw-Cooked-Mythologiques-Claude-L%C3%A9vi-Strauss/dp/0226474879  Rudy Rucker "Ware Tetralogy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ware_TetralogyCarl Woese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Woese  Susan Oyama "Evolution's Eye": https://www.amazon.com/Evolutions-Eye-Systems-Biology-Culture-Cultural/dp/0822324725  Ganoderma lucidum (fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganoderma_lucidum   Lenzites betulina (fungus): https://www.mushroomexpert.com/lenzites_betulina.html