How I Wrote About Art, Ecology, and Simon Faithfull’s Living Sculptures

Writing an art essay is rarely just about writing. It’s a process of looking, thinking, re-thinking, researching, doubting, deleting, rewriting, and occasionally spiralling. For my recent essay on Simon Faithfull’s Biotope: Fungi Bed 1–3, the process became just as layered and organic as the artwork itself.

In a way, the essay grew like the fungi I wrote about, slowly, unpredictably, and through a network of connections I didn’t fully see until the end.

Starting at the Exhibition: My First Reaction

My process began not with research but with feeling.
Seeing Faithfull’s fungal head sculptures in person was both eerie and mesmerising. I knew straight away that these works weren’t just “representations”, they were events, constantly shifting with the growth of real fungi. That emotional response became the seed of the entire essay.

I kept returning to this question:

Why did this feel so alive, and what did that aliveness mean?

Those early impressions helped me build the central question that would eventually guide the paper: How does Faithfull use art to activate ecological consciousness?

Letting the Work Speak First

Before diving into theory, I wrote my detailed observations of the work:

• the unsettling stillness of the heads

• the contrast between smooth, 3D-printed skin and messy fungal blooms

• the way the fungi invaded or merged with the human form

This step grounded my essay. I always find that describing the artwork deeply and honestly saves me later, it keeps the writing anchored in something visual and tangible.

Researching the Ecosystem Around the Artwork

Once the visual analysis was solid, I expanded outward. I began researching Faithfull’s broader practice, and this is where the essay really opened up. Discovering his Bee-Bole project, where bees lived inside a cast of his head for weeks, gave me the context I needed to understand Biotope as part of a larger ecological exploration.

From there, I researched other ecological artists:

• Pierre Huyghe, whose artworks behave like ecosystems

• Agnes Denes, who turned Manhattan into a wheat field

• Natalie Jeremijenko, blending science, activism, and public engagement

Seeing these conversations between artists helped me articulate Faithfull's position: more intimate than Denes, more bodily than Jeremijenko, more contained than Huyghe.

This comparative step helped me understand not just what the artwork was, but what it did.

Falling Down Fungal Rabbit Holes (A Lot of Them)

Because the piece literally grows fungi, I needed to understand how fungi work. This unexpectedly became one of the most interesting parts of my research process.

I explored:

• mycelial networks

• ecological roles of fungi

• decomposition processes

• Cordyceps (disturbing but fascinating)

These scientific details shaped the essay’s conceptual backbone. They let me argue that the mycelial growth wasn’t just a cool effect, it was the point. Fungi became a metaphor for decentralised creativity, interdependence, and invisible ecological infrastructures.

Finding My Own Emotional Angle

Halfway through writing, I realised that something personal was happening.

Watching the sculptures slowly change over multiple visits made me confront ideas of decay, vulnerability, and my own body’s place within natural systems. I included this emotional response in the essay, not as a diary entry, but as evidence of the artwork’s affective power.

This helped the essay shift from being descriptive to being reflective. It connected ecology to embodiment, theory to experience.

Shaping the Argument

With all my materials, observations, research, emotions, and comparisons, I finally shaped the structure:

1. Introduce the work as a living, changing sculpture

2. Describe what I saw

3. Contextualise Faithfull’s wider practice

4. Compare him with other ecological artists

5. Integrate fungal science

6. Reflect on my personal encounter

7. Return to the question of ecological consciousness

This made the essay feel circular, mirroring the lifecycle themes in the artwork itself.

Revising: Letting Go of Control (Like Faithfull?)

My final round of editing felt strangely connected to the artwork’s themes. I realised that part of the process was letting the essay evolve beyond what I originally thought it would be.

Instead of forcing tidy conclusions, I allowed the ideas to remain dynamic, just like Faithfull lets fungi reshape his sculptures without interference.

That became an insight in itself: ecological art often rejects fixed meaning, and my writing needed to reflect that.

Finishing the Essay, But Not the Thought Process

By the time I finished, what began as an analysis of head sculptures became a meditation on:

• decay

• identity

• ecology

• authorship

• and the quiet ways nonhuman life shapes ours

Writing the essay taught me as much about my relationship to nature as the artwork did. And, in its own way, that’s the mark of successful ecological art; it doesn’t just inform; it transforms.

With love and minerals,

Ellie Jane x