Fungus Humongous features a magical forest where everything, from fallen branches to all kinds of fungi, has been scaled up to huge proportions. This arts space commissioned by The Artground takes families into the magical forest to imagine what it could be like. We’ve prepared a fun-filled activity book featuring the mushroom in Fungus Humongous. Click here to download!

About the Artist

NAYA, which means new in Sanskrit, was ironically born out of a collaboration between old friends. Its founders, Durrah, Irsyad, Nadhirah and Tammy have known each other since meeting in SOTA in 2012, but NAYA was only formed in 2020 when the friends were reunited once more over the desire to reignite the spark of artistic collaboration between them. Bridged by the ethos that art should be made accessible to everyone, the group aims to make art unbounded by barriers of access such as class, age, and ability. While it sounds like an ambitious goal, the group believes in handling these issues with the gravitas they deserve, whilst also not taking themselves too seriously. When not creating art, the group enjoys taking turns to mess with each other, long conversations over pizza, and rollerskating.

The Inspiration Behind Fungus Humongous

This is The Artground’s first Arts Space Open Call, Creatives from all walks of life submitted their design proposal to us and together with a panel, we selected art collective NAYA and their concept of Fungus Humongous.

To design for a better experience, the artists did their research through conducting experiential workshops with children (from both The Artground and Kindle Garden). They were able to collect valuable insights into what these children thought about the concept and how they envisioned Fungus Humongous to look like! The artists took inspiration from that and came up with the Fungus Humongous you see today.

Mushroom Making

We started hand-making these mushrooms that would be ‘planted’ all over the space. The process took about 3 months with multiple experimentation. The mushrooms you see in the space are made out of different materials, from soft clay to cement coated fabric pieces! Each of them truly unique and crafted with love.

We wanted to make this magical forest special and a place for everyone. Special considerations were paid to the flow of the space, it’s material selection, as well as accessible interactive touch points – for children of all abilities.

The Magical Tree

A huge part of this arts space revolves around the purple tree where most of the fungi lives. A quiet nook for anyone to do some exploring inside it’s magical core. Balance, hang and climb from it’s gigantic roots, it even extends all the way to the baby stage area for our littlest ones to explore.

Experience Fungus Humongous At Home

It’s unfortunate that we have to close the arts space while we ride through this wave together. But the exploration of this magical forest continues! We’ve prepared a fun-filled activity book featuring the mushroom in Fungus Humongous.

↓ Click here to download!

Fungus Humongous goes to xxxx (XXX)

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Find out more about our Arts Space Adoption Programme here!