Mushroom like you

Project Description

When I feel helpless, or when I want to escape.

I often choose to curl up in a corner and think of myself as a mushroom.

Mushrooms grow in shady corners, they seem to hide, but at the same time, many are vibrant or in great colour contrast to the world around them making it impossible to miss them.

Their roots a hidden underground system through which they communicate remind me of the complex and often hidden system of human emotions and how we share them.

I wanted to make wearable devices out of people's hard-to-express emotions. So that they can be tried on, shared and seen. Using mushroom mimicry makes these devices more interesting and gives people enough curiosity to want to continue exploring them, as a way of making the public more aware of their emotional expression and more concerned about the emotions that others cannot express.

The project is finally presented as a finished wearable and other sketch of the finished product. The finished product is used to express the complex ambivalence of wanting to escape from reality and society, but also desiring the attention of others. The sketches illustrate the three topics of over-excitement in social situations, the inability to open up a conversation with others but the desire to share and the stress of excessive secrecy.