At Hakuna Matata—a sprawling outdoor project space in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles (aka the backyard of the curators Eli Diner and Anh Do’s home)—the artist Nour Mobarak presents two new bodies of work. Atop the property sits a series of semi-spherical sculptures from which mycelium cultures—namely, the rooting matter of mushrooms—grow. In the uneven dirt mound under these pieces, I sensed a slight trembling beneath my feet: Subterranean Bounce (all works cited, 2020), looped recordings of balls and other round objects being bumped and rolled across the floor, was playing through five buried speakers.

For these works, Mobarak seems to have been stimulated by the perniciousness of 2020—much like her fungi, which feed off of dead things and pollution. She considers the mushrooms her “studio assistants” with whom she connects closely. Fungi exist outside both the plant and animal kingdoms, possess their own systems of intelligence, prevail well beyond the gender binary, and can communicate with one another across the world. Fungi are rife with metaphoric potential, and Mobarak invites the viewer to connect with these deceptively simple organisms on an intimate level. Hearing and feeling the vibrations of Subterranean Bounce while communing with the artist’s saprophytes makes it seem as though they’re talking among themselves.

I visited Hakuna Matata only a few weeks after the 4.5 earthquake that rocked LA. The possibility of another seems imminent, exacerbating the already heightened environmental precarity that defines life in this city. In the meantime, Mobarak has presented us with the rare opportunity to remember that we are part of a delicate ecosystem—one that human beings have ceaselessly abused—and that fungi, no matter what we do, will outlive us all.

— Gracie Hadland