Dark Side of the Mushroom is a two-part event, including an artist talk with The Chanterelles,
and a Mushroom Tour and Tasting on Mont Royal.

ARTIST TALK
with The Chanterelles: Concordia Greenhouse, 1455 de Maisonneuve W.
(take elevator to 12th floor + follow signs to Greenhouse)
APRIL 20th, 8pm

MUSHROOM TOUR & TASTING
on Mont Royal: 1297 Chemin de la Forêt,
Complexe Funéraire Mont Royal
APRIL 21st, 7:30pm

Frederick Law Olmstead designed Mont Royal as a planned wilderness. Located in the heart of the city, this park represents our careful management of fear and desire. At once a place of children’s play, sport, illicit encounters and cemetaries, this is a site in which the wild is unleashed within carefully maintained boundaries. This mountain erupting from the earth’s surface also marks a space of conquest – of civilization over ‘savagery’. This tour and tasting will focus on the mushroom as a further symbol of what grows just below the surface of consciousness.

Known in Mexico as ‘carne de los muertos,’ it is significant that mushrooms are called ‘flesh of the dead.’ In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan points to fungi’s role in supporting life by decomposing dead matter. Pollan says: “If the soil is the earth’s stomach, fungi supply its digestive enzymes.” Mushrooms grow in mysterious ways, underground, out of human sight and understanding. The underground life of the mushroom is a portal onto the city’s subconscious – that which unfolds in sinewy ways, escaping the light of day or living in its shadow, supporting life, its Other.

Join The Chanterelles on the edge of day and night for a mushroom tour and tasting on Mont Royal. Meeting Spot: 1297 Chemin de la Forêt, Outremont, QC H2V 2P9 Complexe Funéraire Mont Royal

See event poster

le/the SensoriuM gratefully acknowledges support from the Centre for Sensory Studies (Concordia), the Special Individualized Programs (SIP, Concordia), the Concordia Council on Student Life, The Concordia University Alumni Association, the Concordia University Small Grants Program and the Concordia University Greenhouse