Spalting

Spalting is an exhibition of fungal pigments that have been allowed to form uncontrolled on wooden boards. The resulting patterns are abstracted and resembling complicated drawings in ink. A black pigment called melanin was used, melanin is extremely resistant to any kind of degradation. At the end of inoculation period while producing these works, the wooden boards were sterilized in order to interrupt fungal activity. The work in Spalting is produced in the Applied Mycology Lab within the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto and is based on Daniela Tudor’s Ph.D. dissertation.