Seatavern

“In a time where artificial intelligence dominates our future narratives, we return to the oldest intelligence we know - the soil. Mushrooms as the interface. Ritual is our algorithm.”

As the world grapples with ecological collapse and food insecurity, what roles might mushrooms play in our survival and regeneration? How could fungi offer us more than simple meat substitutes or psychedelic experiences?

This multi-course dining experience invites you on a journey where mushrooms serve as role model, teacher, medicine, and visionary guide.

Fungi occupy a complex position in our food systems—often dismissed as marginal or sensationalized for their mystical properties. When viewed through the lens of alternative medicine or psychoactivity, mushrooms frequently evoke fear, stigma, or misunderstanding—particularly in African communities where knowledge systems have been disrupted by colonization.

Across six courses, we will explore fungi at the heart of sustainable food systems. We will experience fermentation and dehydration, raw preparations and powdered forms, fungal cocktails and desserts. We will examine fungi as technologies of survival, regeneration, and ecological restoration. From shiitake to lion’s mane, from food waste bioconversion to home cultivation kits, this experience reimagines mushrooms as solutions to scarcity—deeply rooted in soil, culture, and kinship networks.

Motheo Mamabolo is an indigenous scientist, storyteller, and cultural strategist exploring mushrooms as both superfood and intelligence. Rooted in Batswana cosmologies and guided by intergenerational knowledge, their work examines fungi not only as nutrition but as mnemonic technologies for memory, healing, and resistance.

As the founder of NAGA, a platform dedicated to decolonial creativity and sustainable futures, Motheo is pioneering a mycelium movement—an approach that connects land, brain health, and community through the lens of neuro- nutrition, fermentation, and indigenous agricultural systems. Their current research investigates how mushrooms and fermentation can respond to food scarcity and trauma, especially in postcolonial African contexts.

Motheo’s interdisciplinary practice draws from fine art, film, fermentation science, and African cosmotechnics, with a focus on building food systems that are medicinal, circular, and deeply ancestral. Whether cultivating mushrooms in rural Zeerust or developing storytelling frameworks for neuro-health, their work champions fungi as sacred kin and a radical blueprint for new economies, education, and ecological thinking.