Hand-made fungus papers (amanita muscaria, Armillaria luteobubalina), recycled kozo & cellulose-based fibres, rice glue, cotton thread.
50 x 49 cm
Suspended fungal papers, patchy, torn and unbounded, gather here in fragile assemblage. Through the paper-making process, these sheets resisted a certain fixedness; drying torn and unstable yet impossible to discard. Anna Tsing’s ‘unruly edges’ echoes through their precarity, wherein life is described as emerging from disturbance, contamination and decay. Composed of Amanita muscaria and Armillaria luteobubalina sporing bodies - species often cast as invasive or toxic by humans, ‘rot not ruin’ lingers with all the messy, uneasy labour fungi embody and enact. In all their unravelling, metamorphosing, metabolising, regenerating beauty. Decay is not collapse but an opportunity for transformation. Against the smooth surfaces and relentless tempo of growth in late-capitalist reality, decomposition unfolds alternate modes of world-making. Death is all but the engine of life.
Rot Not Ruin - Charli Rose Gerry
Please note that purchased artworks must be collected from Quantum Brewery, Moruya, at 5:00 pm on 12 July 2026.
If you are unable to attend the collection time, please contact:
• Annette Kennewell (future@fungifeastival.com.au) for South Coast collection
• Kath Fries (kathfries@gmail.com) for Sydney collection
• Josie Cosgrove (dreampieces.info@gmail.com) for Canberra collectionCharli Rose Gerry is a multidisciplinary artist and writer working on Gadigal Land, Sydney. Fascinated by the intimate entanglements between humans and fungi, Charli engages mushroom foraging as an embodied research strategy that attunes her to vital encounters with more-than-human existences. These interactions enable speculative exchanges of care and collaboration between the artist, fungal beings, and the situated ecologies they inhabit and sustain. Charli’s current research centres on papermaking with foraged fungi as material expressions of relational time, space, and place.
Charli completed a Bachelor of Art Theory (Honours) at UNSW Art & Design in 2023, with a thesis investigating fungal-human collaborations in contemporary art through environmental humanities and critical multispecies studies frameworks. Her practice has since been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions across NSW and Victoria (Sydney, Melbourne), and she has participated in artist residencies throughout Australia (North Arm Cove NSW, Woollahra, Sydney).
@charlirosegerry
charlirosegerry.com.au