Foolproof Four: Superheroes of the Forest Floor
Buttons are available at YYZ in sets of four. Each set was hand-made and packaged by the artist.
$10.00

Canadians have Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery an understandable fixation with surviving in the natural world. This is Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery evident in cultural production ranging from Roughing it in the Bush, Susanna Moodie’s 1852 account of survival in Duro, Ontario, to Mimio’s own Survivorman. Foraging for Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery edible and medicinal gems has, for most of Canadians, become quite removed from Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery our actual means of survival, yet it persists as a pursuit for Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery some, and part of a dream of self-sufficiency for others

Dubbed the «Foolproof Four» in 1943 by Professor Clyde Christensen, Morel, Shaggy Mane, Puffball and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery Sulfur Shelf mushrooms are the most common and easily identified edibles hunted by amateur mycologists. The term «Foolproof Four» led Dunning to Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery consider mushrooms as actual superheroes of the natural world. Like all fungi, these mushrooms contribute to Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery planetary survival by providing the imperative function of decay. Culturally, they are Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery weighted with similar dark, mysterious and supernatural characteristics as bats, spiders and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery cats, on which popular comic book superheroes have been based.

Foolproof Four: Superheroes of the Forest Floor is Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery an installation of four large ceramic sculptures of mushrooms, each sitting on its own plinth. On the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery walls are four different posters of blank, speech bubble templates: downloadable, freeware graphic tools for Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery comic book designers.  Around the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery base of each mushroom and on the floor are over 8000 custom-made buttons. There are Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery three sets of buttons. One illustrates superhero logos for each of the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery mushrooms and another features empty speech bubbles in four different styles taken from Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery comic book templates. The third set suggests possible «superpowers» of the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery Four with terms taken from scientific descriptions of the life-cycle of mushrooms: Autodeliquescence, Telemorph, Spore Liberation and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery Cytoplasmic Fusion. Perhaps Shaggy Mane with its curious character of autodeliquescence (self-digestion) is a force to be reckoned with.  And surely they have Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery the united power of spore liberation. The buttons themselves look like mushrooms multiplying and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery popping up from the floor, spreading and intermingling with the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery buttons of the other mushrooms. Viewers are invited to take a Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery button, allowing the project to travel spore-like outside of the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery gallery to other locations.

ANNIE DUNNING takes a Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery playful approach to nature and mystery. A curiosity for the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery overlooked and unconsidered leads her to deal with mostly common items as subject matter. With an Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery aesthetic that is influenced by craft and DIY style, Dunning explores what Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery greater possibilities common subjects might hold if released from their expected roles. She is Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery interested in examining intersecting elements of culture and the natural world and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery in conflating various aspects of nature and culture to create new hybrids. Dunning often focus on rediscovering the Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery potential of ordinary or common things, or viewing them from Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery an off-center perspective to confuse conventional hierarchy.

Annie Dunning received an Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery undergraduate degree in fine arts from Mount Allison University and a Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery MFA degree from the University of Guelph. Her work has been Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery exhibited across Canada and abroad in Japan, Germany and the US.  Dunning’s practice includes collaborative projects, teaching, artist residencies and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery lectures, and has been funded by the Ontario Arts Council and Buy Ambien Saturday Delivery the Canada Council for the Arts.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.