We need to speak in spores is a collective exercise in attunement, empathy and collaboration where the public is invited to think like fungi. Taking place outside the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC), participants will be presented with an “event score” — a set of simple instructions that will prompt a series of group actions, meditations, and thought experiments to explore the emergent effects of encounter. Taking cues from fungi’s integral role in a forest’s health, such as facilitating interspecies communication and resource distribution, the participatory event will repurpose a selection of research papers, essay selections, news stories, poems, mythologies and will “compost” previous artistic elements from Sahar Te’s curatorial program Incubator, originally installed in the VAC Loft Gallery in fall 2021. Through a process of exchanged “assembled contaminations,” participants will discover and co-produce their own collective, attuned language.

* To participate in this event, no previous performance experience is required.