The realms of Haute Couture, contemporary art and music are set to collide gloriously with the psychedelic world of mushrooms and the fascinating science of mycology this summer. In Fungi Forms, the inspirational works filling the rooms Inverleith House gallery, from August 2 to December 8, will provide a rich synergy with weird and wonderful organisms making themselves known within the wider grounds of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Featuring pieces ranging from the high fashion world of *Stella McCartney and **Iris van Herpen to sculpture by Simon Faithfull and Hannah Read and Jo Coupe’s contemporary art, Fungi Forms opens as part of the annual Edinburgh Art Festival. Extending through autumn and into winter, it invites its audiences to engage at many levels with this diverse, often misunderstood, other kingdom which is neither plant nor animal.

Amy Porteous, Producer of Creative Programmes at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh explained: “Fungi are integral to life on Earth as we know it. Yet, most of us are unaware of how much they touch our lives, from their role in creating countless everyday products to profoundly impacting the crops on which we rely and taking action as our ultimate recyclers.

“Fungi can be as ordinary as the breakfast mushroom and alien enough to trap microscopic worms in the soil. They have inspired artists down the centuries, from featuring in Roman frescoes, to Baroque masterpieces and beyond. As we learn more about these incredible organisms, we realise their potential uses in everything from fashion to design and engineering are more than we could have ever imagined. As an art gallery within an international research institute, we believe it is important to celebrate the wonderful world of fungi through this eclectic exhibition of sculpture, sound, style, scents, illustrations, literature, and just the right helping of science.”

The art and science of the exhibition are central to the current work of artist, musician and author Dr Siôn Parkinson, a research fellow at the Garden. Focusing on the olfactory heritage of fungi in relation to the senses, he is concentrating on the stimuli of sound and smell, in particular with relation to the dune stinkhorn (Phallus hadriani), a widespread fungus around coastal regions, and important in the history of mycology. Recognisable for its foul odour and phallic shape when mature, the stinkhorn was also the inspiration for a dress, created by fashion designer Matty Bovan, which is featuring in the exhibition.

Enabled thanks to funding raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, this celebration of the beautiful and bizarre extends to include living specimens. As fruiting structures appear around the Garden, a diverse range of fungi species - quite possibly including stinkhorn - will receive their own temporary interpretation, explaining their various qualities in-situ.

During the run a series of events, workshops, tours and talks will take place, including a lecture by mycologist and Entangled Life author Merlin Sheldrake and an appearance by Hannah Read, playing from her new album, THE FUNGI SESSIONS Vol 1.

Meanwhile, two new books are available: Stinkhorn: How Nature’s Most Foul Smelling Mushroom Can Change the Way We Listen by Siôn Parkinson is published by Sternberg Press, while The Fascinating World of Fungi, edited by Dr Max Coleman, is published by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to accompany the exhibition.