I have travelled a great deal during the last two years, with my luggage increasingly coming to resemble a mobile laboratory. Pots of agar, culture plates and various other paraphernalia accompany me on my trips. I never dreamt that fungi would take me so far, nor involve meeting such an unexpected range of people.

The formative ideas for my recent projects originated in the Wellcome Trust's TwoTen Gallery. In 2001 I was invited to contribute to 'Growth and Form', the exhibition of biomedical images and contemporary artworks. I made 'Breathe' specifically for the gallery, using fungal spores from air samples taken in and around the Wellcome Building, and growing them on three giant 'Petri plates' of agar that were installed on light boxes as a 'live' work. My aim was to make visible a breath of air.

I have been working with mycologists at Birkbeck College, London, developing artworks using fungi for a number of years. My first project was a work growing species of fungi that live on particular foodstuffs. To check the work met health and safety regulations, I took weekly air samples to monitor spore levels. It turned out that spores are ever present in the atmosphere, which, while perfectly obvious in hindsight, was not something I, or most people I spoke to, had thought about. Becoming aware of this, and learning about mycology, has fuelled a string of fruitful adventures.

The TwoTen exhibition went on tour, and since I had to work with labs to set up the work afresh for each venue, it led me into discussions with more micro-biologists and visitors. This has helped me channel ideas from this initial work into more ambitious ventures.

In 2002 I was invited to take up the inaugural Fine Art Fellowship at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, for six months, culminating in an exhibition at the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. I proposed to make a 'microbial portrait' of the North Island for the outside terrace on the top floor of the Museum, edged by 23 glass panels. The spectacular view from the terrace stretches across the curve of Wellington harbour, beyond the hills, and northwards across the Tararua mountains, drawing one's gaze to the distant horizon.

I mapped sight lines radiating outwards from the terrace across maps of the country, corresponding to the view through each panel. I visited locations that lay on each line, choosing places for geographic, cultural, historic or scientific significance, or sometimes simply because I was curious to know what lay behind a name, collecting spore-laden air samples as I went. Once cultivated, images taken of the samples were fixed to the glass panels, visually binding the geography of the site with the biology of the environment.

Last summer I carried out a pilot project supported by Winchester School of Art and the Arts and Humanities Research Board, to explore the possibilities of 'mapping' the thin slice of land that is Chile, by way of the microbial content of its air. Chile has a unique range of climates, from the heat and aridity of the Atacama desert right down to the frozen wastes of Antarctica. So far I have collected samples at latitudes from Arica in the far north as far south as Santiago, at coastal and interior locations, passing through stark, breathtaking landscapes and meeting some extraordinary people along the way. With generous assistance from the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago and countless people in Chile and the UK, what began as a muttering of an idea has become very real.

For me as an artist, working alongside scientists propagates a practice that is informed and enriched by science rather than being illustrative. I like facts. Adding some knowledge of science to my work raises questions that I doubt would otherwise come to mind. I use a scientific methodology to gather my information and materials, but inject an artist's sensibility to articulate it.

I am hoping to return to Chile to complete the southern half of the country, but I also have my eye on Antarctica. Apsley Cherry-Garrard opens his account of Scott's final expedition to the South Pole with the lines: "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised". I am determined to find out for myself.

For further information, contact Rachel Chapman at rchapman@mistral.co.uk.

See also

• 'Growth and Form' exhibition in the TwoTen Gallery featured the work of Rachel Chapman in 2001

External links

• Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago, Chile