Artwork title : Time to Break Down

Time to Break Down presents a single 3D-printed PLA mushroom imagined as a fossil from a speculative deep past. Drawing on taphonomy, the scientific study of how bodies decay, the work asks what evolutionary advantage a fungus introduced plastic to the world in prehistory. By treating plastic as an ancient material rather than a modern pollutant, the sculpture reframes our entanglement with its presence in the world.

The accompanying soundscape links fossil fuel extraction to the slow, uneven breakdown of plastic, evoking the long afterlives of human-made substances as they infiltrate real ecosystems. Durable, unreactive, and persistent, plastic continues to outlast the organisms around it; this fictional Palaeoplasticene era makes that endurance palpable. The work invites viewers to confront the temporal dissonance between organic decay and synthetic permanence, and to consider how such materials shape both present and future worlds. Presented for acquisition and indoor display within a bespoke clay pot and a set of instructions for mounting with materials from the local landscape, Time to Break Down challenges the viewer to encounter geological and palaeological time and humanity's place within it.