MUSHROOM MOUNTAIN
Film Screening April 5 at 5:00PM
Rubenstein Arts Center Film Theater
In Mengku, Yunnan, located in Southwest China, the rainy season soaks through the whole month of July. In the forest, mushrooms rise quietly from the wet soil, carrying the rhythm, hope, exhaustion, and resilience of a whole community on their small and fragile caps. What truths about survival and dignity can be known by attending to these lives that grow in the shadows? This project began when I returned from the U.S. to my mother’s hometown—a place I had never truly gone back to. I heard many stories about the “mushrooms” found in this region, stories full of mystery, fear, and excitement. Some people said that if you eat these mushrooms, you will see tiny people from another world. So I tried. Once, twice, three times. But every time, nothing happened to me. My relatives laughed and told me,
“It’s because you have the memory of our ancestors in your blood. Your body already knows these mushrooms.”
In that moment, I suddenly understood: I was not coming home to do fieldwork— I was being received again by the land. And I knew then that this story could only be told by me.
Mushrooms are my entrance into this world. Through them, I see how a community keeps its order, humor, dignity, and way of living even under fragility and pressure. And I see how, in a forest that is constantly changing, people try their best not to let their life be swallowed entirely.
Narrative documentary first led me to observe the world and to express my voice through storytelling. Experimental documentary expanded my technical possibilities, aesthetic sensibilities, and the freedom and diversity of themes I could engage with. Working across photography, documentary, experimental film, installation, and body performance, I focus on hometown narratives, feminist perspectives, and embodied experience.
My art is always faithful to my reflections on myself, on what I see and hear, and on the world. My practice combines anthropological and sociological fieldwork with an experimental visual language, one grounded in lived experience, yet open to the poetic and the imaginative.
I love this world. I never set limits for myself on my art journey. I will always Be brave, Be creative, Be alive.
