On a dark moonlit night, Hyde Park in England came alive as a row of ‘Mushrooms’ sprouted across the Serpentine Lake. This surprising phenomenon was part of an installation by the London-based Durban artist Christiaan Nagel.
The calm before the storm
The growing process
The mushrooms were installed the week before the Royal English Wedding in April. They were thus ‘a present for the couple to be married’.
The last mushroom appearing
Christiaan Nagel comments:
These wild mushrooms are a metaphor for an idea – needing the right environmental circumstances, climate and moisture. The art created is from a little bit of magic whose origin we can’t determine.
If you can’t quite see in the video how this inspired installation was put together, here’s what happened: they broke into Hyde Park at night while it was closed to avoid getting caught, then Christiaan set up the components of the artwork from a surfboard, wearing a wetsuit because of the freezing water! Unfortunately the ‘authorities’ took it down the next day, so it didn’t last long. Well, at least they caught it all on camera!
To see more of Christiaan’s work, check out his Facebook page.
