Meeting #2: Earthen, Earthy, Earthly

Planet Marx landed in the house of Matsutake. For the Reading Club’s second meeting, we collaborated with the curatorial team at Taikang Space behind the exhibition “Tracing the Mushroom at the End of the World”, who also generously hosted the session at their space.

The three texts we jointly selected stemmed from different roots, grown from a wilderness, a minority, or an exotic land. All the discoveries therein, however, instructed us in how we could narrate and reinvent the imaginary of Genesis, Apocalypse, and the Anthropocene – criticizing the hypocrisy inherent in the “universality” endowed in these terms. Moderated by Liu Qianxi, the curator of “Tracing the Mushroom at the End of the World”, and Chen Zian, the researcher of Long March Project, Scholar Xiang Zairong and artist Mao Chenyu respectively gave us introductions to their own works, branching towards, enclosing around, and sometimes intertwining with the exhibition. In line with Anna Tsing’s concern of narrative politics, the exhibition encouraged its viewers to wander, traverse and forage in the perplexingly wondrous landscape of the show. Your sight is drawn to what is above and below, your feet on the ground but your body in the air, your senses acute and your mind boggled; precisely the manner in which we encouraged participants to read these texts.

Click here for a summary of this session