Join MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts candidate and Kenan Graduate Arts Fellow April Fan for an exhibit opening, reception and artist’s talk in the Fredric Jameson Gallery in the Friedl Building.

Who Owns the Mushroom? Between Extraction and Relation

In Mengku, Yunnan, a mountain region in southwest China, July’s rain saturates the earth, and mushrooms quietly rise from the wet soil, carrying the rhythms and pressures of a community living between tradition and transformation. Through photography and installation, this exhibition traces the ancestral paths through the mountains, the villagers searching for mushrooms deep in the forest, and the shifting, dynamic relationship between people and the land.  The mushrooms are not only a forest resource, but encapsulate the villagers’ livelihood, memory, and a way of relating to land. This exhibition follows families whose lives are shaped by mushroom foraging, asking how labor, dignity, and belonging are negotiated between extraction and relation.

This is a portrait of survival and dignity, and of how, under the dual demands of ecological and economic ethics, people are pushed by the market to change while still striving to hold on to their living relationship with the mountains and forests.

The exhibit opening and artist talk is scheduled for 5 p.m. on April 1 in the Fredric Jameson Gallery in the Friedl Building. Free and open to the public, refreshments will be served.

Artist bio