"Symbiotic Architecture" is a series of works made with wood leaves that have been transformed by lignin fungi, cut and glued on paper or canvas on a frame. The works represent dreamlike landscapes, which the artist associates with sand dunes and their movements, both harmonious and unpredictable.

Maud Louvrier Clerc particularly likes to observe them in Brittany where they perfectly illustrate the ambivalence of the relationship between Man and nature. While they are inherently mobile, humans try to fix them fearing their drift and the associated risks of marine submersion in the hinterland. Yet every storm reminds us, with the dunes we seek to tame what cannot be. During the year, the dune and the beach, which cannot be separated, change shape under the influence of wind and waves. In winter, the beach widens and the foot of the dune is cut into a cliff by the sea. This phenomenon is spectacular after the high tides. In summer, the beach fattens and the dune is rebuilt. The recommendations of specialists are clear, however: as far as possible, the management of a dune must be based onnon- -
intervention.

The impermanence of nature is one of the key principles of wabi-sabi, which is a Japanese aesthetic and spiritual concept born in the 14th century as part of the tea ceremony reinvented by Murata Shuko. Wabi expresses the fullness and humility that one can experience in the face of the beauty of nature, and Sabi expresses respect for things damaged by time or work. The two terms combined mean wanting to accept and appreciate the impermanence and imperfection of life’s things.

In this series, the artist undertakes to reveal the beauty of the work of ligninous fungi, which they consider as true interior architects. Unlike the lignivorous fungi that can feed on a framework and are the obsession of architects, these lignin-bearing fungi, said of discoloration, do not degrade the membrane of the wood cells. They just cause heating, which results in aesthetic damage. The wood can become veined, flamed, moiré, bariolated. Far from considering these exercises as ugly, the artist admires their beauty. She sees it as an illustration of a natural process, both modest, imperfect and beautiful. The sheets of wood used in the production of the work have a coarse grain where one can also see the marks of time, due to random storage or rudimentary sawmill processes, which will have left indelible marks.

Maud Louvrier Clerc intends to evoke with this series «Symbiotic Architecture» the work carried out by the millions of microorganisms that modify, often invisible, our environment. His personal utopia would also be to realize with these wood mushrooms monumental decorations integrated into facades or walls of houses or wooden buildings. Beyond, the series
opens a reflection on a change of attitude towards the power of natural processes. Instead of fighting against them or trying to reproduce them, it invites us to imagine the incredible potentialities that a collaboration with them would offer and the associated energy efficiencies.