“Living Labyrinths”: major exhibition on art and fungi opens at Exeter’s RAMM museum

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) in Exeter, England, opened the major exhibition “Living Labyrinths: Art and Fungi” on 3 October 2026, which explores the cultural world of fungi through art and scientific research. The exhibition, which will remain open until 21 February 2027, brings together painting, ceramics, glass, photography, textiles and sound art, building a rare journey through the hidden kingdom of fungi.

Among the exhibition’s star loans are the carefully observed mycological watercolours of Beatrix Potter (1866–1943): before becoming famous for children’s books such as Peter Rabbit, Potter was a serious amateur mycologist who painted almost 300 watercolours of fungi in the 1890s, now held at the Armitt Library. Alongside them is Cy Twombly’s collage series “Natural History, Part I, Mushrooms” (1974), as ArtTour International reports.

Two new commissions give the exhibition a contemporary spirit: Gemma Anderson-Tempini’s large-scale drawing of the human fungal microbiome and Jason Singh’s bio-sonic sound art of mycelium networks. They are joined by works by Sian Bonnell, Seana Gavin, Andy Harper, Hilde Hauan Johnsen, Lucy Mercer, Jo Pearl, Chantal Powell and Holly Stevenson, which address themes such as symbiosis, biodiversity and sustainability. The exhibition also includes newly restored dried specimens, natural history drawings and lantern slides from RAMM’s own collections.

The exhibition is curated by Lara Goodband, who emphasises that “Living Labyrinths” shows how fungi shape our physical and conceptual worlds — from ecology to artistic imagination. The exhibition is supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate and Arts Council England. The accompanying family programme includes a fungi-themed nature-craft workshop for children on 27 October and the “Mushroom Show” performance on 28 October, according to ArtTour International.