BreatheDecay in Wytham Woods: A film by Lillian Tranborg

This short film by artist Lillian Tranborg follows the organic evolution of a sculpture in Wytham Woods in Oxford, from August 2018 to March 2021. Continuing Bodies was a sculpture created during the How Nature Builds project at Modern Art Oxford in 2018, forging a connection between the gallery space and the outdoors. A steel structure, or ‘rib-cage’, holds bricks or ‘lungs’ made of mycelium, a fungus that colonises the roots of trees. Over time the steel has turned red by oxidation, and the mycelium has begun to decompose. Wanting to capture this process of decay, Lillian Tranborg has been monitoring the sculpture regularly, following its gradual seasonal changes.