Lichen
Hand knit Mexican hamac, cardboard boxes, ca. 300 x 80 x 75 cm
Lichen is a symbiotic association between a fungus and alga that has a potential lifespan of well over 4000 years. It is an organism that has no territory because it can grow everywhere. Independent of soil and (to a large extent sun), lichen feeds only on what the wind carries. It survives in all climates and geographical formations, even in the Earth’s most extreme environments - arctic tundra, hot deserts, rocky coasts and toxic slag heaps. The only thing that kills lichen is polluted air. Well into the 70s scientists were measuring the air pollution of a region by the gradual disappearance of lichen species.