About the event

Dia-spore-ra is part science, part storytelling, part performance — an immersive, participatory exploration of what fungi can teach us about belonging, displacement, and transformation in times of radical change within the current political climate.

Building on the conceptual groundwork of Forij's collaboration with artists at Eastside Projects’ Together in the Mud x Dirty Nails, this session extends the conversation from soil to mycelium — from the material to the metaphorical.

Where Together in the Mud explored “dirt as displaced soil,” tracing how earth loses vitality when removed from its ecosystem, Dia-spore-ra turns to fungi as agents of reconnection and renewal. In Together in the Mud, participants reflected on how soil — once uprooted — mirrors the experiences of displaced communities: how both need care, attention, and relationship to thrive again. Dia-spore-ra asks what happens next — how life finds new ways to connect even after dislocation. If the earlier work asked, “What does the soil of your belonging need to thrive?”, this new iteration wonders, “How do spores rebuild networks of care and identity after dispersal?”

Inspired by three books

- Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life

- Layla K. Feghali’s The Land in Our Bones: Earth-based Pathways to Ancestral Stewardship and Belonging in Diaspora

- Jessica J. Lee’s Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging

this session reimagines displacement and diaspora through the fungal lens — life forms that thrive through connection, adaptation, and transformation.

Through reflective storytelling, shared dialogue, and spoken word, participants will journey through questions such as:

• What lessons can we draw from fungi’s adaptability and interconnectedness?

• How can we cultivate resilience and community in our own lives, inspired by fungi?

• How do communities rebuild identity when they are displaced or part of a diaspora?

• What ancestral or cultural practices have helped you adapt to new environments — even when they’ve had to change form?

• If you imagine yourself as a spore, carried across landscapes, what memories, rituals, or foods carry your earth memory across distance?

• What does “home” mean to you — not as a fixed place, but as a mycelial network of relationships, stories, and acts of care?

Participants are invited to bring personal reflections, stories and photographs, or short pieces of poetry or spoken word that speak to migration, memory, and belonging — threads that will weave through the discussion like living hyphae.

Dia-spore-ra reminds us that belonging is not where we stay — it’s how we connect.

Fungi teach us to root, again and again, in kinship and care, forming new relationships that make life possible after displacement.

Step into the mycelial web and see the world anew. Together, we’ll question how both plants and people come to belong — or not — and reveal how all our futures are more entwined than we might imagine.

Themes

• Diaspora, displacement, and the ecology of belonging

• Mycelial networks and collective resilience

• Plantcestral and fungal knowledge

• Re-rooting, memory, and transformation

What to Expect

A rich, sensory experience blending storytelling, ecological philosophy, poetry, and reflection.

Part talk, part collective performance, Dia-spore-ra invites participants into a living dialogue between fungal and human worlds — one that reveals how life survives, adapts, and connects across boundaries.

No prior knowledge of fungi or performance is needed — only curiosity and openness to connection.

You are invited to bring photographs, spoken word or poetry to share.

Accessibility

The Connect Event Space at Millennium Point fully accessible. A small room close to the event space is available for prayer or as a quiet room.

This event is taking place as part of the first Birmingham Fungi Festival. Click here to find details of what else is going on, including fungi forays, talks and workshops!