Tamar Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe – The Political Power of Mycelium

Instrumentarian power (…) is morally agnostic. The only moral imperative here is distilled from the point of view of a thin utopian gruel. If there is sin, it is the sin of autonomy: the audacity to reject the flows that herd us all toward predictability.“ — Shoshana Zuboff, 2019

A key point of departure for the artivist work of Tamara Moyzes is undoubtedly her multicultural family background, which weaves together Slovak, Hungarian, Jewish, and Roma roots. Her often traumatic experiences lend her the ability to present emotionally complex themes authentically, while her socially engaged approach reaches far beyond the conventional boundaries of art. In her practice and in the gallery space Artivist Lab¹, she maps out the situation of excluded, migrating or war-afflicted individuals and communities, exploring the possibility of facing the radical indifference and dehumanisation of power structures from eco-feminist and eco-political positions. She works on most of her projects along with her partner, Israeli artist Shlomi Yaffe. 

In 2022, the artistic couple started working on the idea of a monotheistic religion called Lactism, based on the belief in the pantheistic power of maternal emotion and empathy and making use of the as yet not fully explored superpowers of an alternative network of relationships – mycelium. Moyzes and Yaffe have been gradually developing this open-ended project, straddling the boundary between interdisciplinary artistic study, ritual performance, and multimedia installation since 2022, as part of exhibitions and festivals spanning Prague and Jerusalem. The part entitled Mycoremediation² addressed the issue of the environmental injustice faced by most Slovak Roma settlements, which, in addition to social exclusion, are exposed to ecological risks associated with the proximity of municipal and industrial waste dumps and contamination of water sources. The next phase of the project took place in Israel shortly after the October Hamas attack, during the preparation of the Israeli offensive into Gaza. In the wake of collective trauma, the exhibition became a place that, over several weeks, brought together people from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities directly affected by war, loss of loved ones, and mobilisation. The wealth of such spontaneous gatherings recorded shows that the theme of universally understood female sharing became a means of communication and mutual understanding under these extreme conditions. The last part of the Lactism series once again took place in Prague in the year 2024³. A joint performance of a multi-ethnic group of women reading aloud their personal accounts in Hebrew, Vietnamese, and Romany took place before a monumental projection of the figure of the goddess Lacteria stretching out her countless arms over the landscapes of geopolitical conflict sites. The women’s reflections on solidarity, in the context of their ethnic and family backgrounds, and their individual personal rituals were framed by a reading of the Shadow Report on the Status of Gender Equality⁴, describing the situation of female migrants in the Czech Republic.

The sophisticated theological apparatus of Lactism and its mycelium is grounded in eco-feminism and accordingly transforms traditional racial and gender stereotypes into celebrations of diversity of identity and inclusivity of non-hierarchical approaches to the organisation of nature and society. The form of the goddess Lacteria, for example, arose from a critical reappropriation of the theory of eugenics founder Francis Galton, who used portraits compiled from multiple individuals of the same ethnic group to form racial archetypes. Mycelium is not just a symbol of social structure, but also a commentary on the vulnerability of a surveillance society⁵ based on technological – and thus controllable – interconnection. Lactism’s message is thus to emphasise the functionality and resilience of natural, physical, and emotional bonds as alternatives to the power systems that are today increasingly abused by private economic interests.

The goddess Lacteria was created by a collective of women: Maayan Sheleff, Věra Duždová Horváthová, Hannan Abu Hussein, Osher Kasa, Lee He Shulov, Michal Mendelboim, Tran Hong Van, Trương Thu Thủy, Lea Mauas, Noa Pardo, Liora Lupian, and Rosa Andraschek.

IMAGE CAPTIONS

1 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Altar installation, Calix Lactis (chalice of milk), photo: Pery Mendelboym, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists

2 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Logo Lactism, design: Noa Segal, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists

3 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Hologram, 2022, 3D model of the goddess Lacteria by Jan Mucska, © 2046, Courtesy of the Artists

4 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, still image from the video work Lacteria’s Hands Over Wounded Lands, 3:08 min, 2022, Courtesy of the Artists

5 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Statua Lactariae Matris (Sculpture of Mother Lacteria), 3D model: Jan Mucska, photo: Michal Ureš, Installation view, NOD Gallery, 2022, Courtesy of the Artists

6 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, exhibition opening at Art Cube Artist’s Studios, Jerusalem, in collaboration with the Sulha Organisation (Forgiveness), photo: Pery Mendelboym, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists

7 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Lactism: Mycoremediation, Mapping Environmental Injustice, Map of Roma settlements in Slovakia, straw, mycelium, mushrooms, the Václav Špála Gallery, exhibition: Hay, Straw, Dump, photo: Shlomi Yaffe, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists

8 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Lactism: Mycoremediation, Mapping Environmental Injustice, Map of Roma settlements in Slovakia, straw, mycelium, mushrooms, the Art Cube Artist’s Studios, Jerusalem, still image from camera, Jakub Rajnoch, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists

9 | Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Altare Lacteriae (Altar of Lacteria), the Art Cube Artist’s Studios, Jerusalem, building facade-public space, photo: Pery Mendelboym, 2023, Courtesy of the Artists