OFFERINGS + PRESENTERS
Exsiccata Diaspora: Perilla
Perilla frutescens—known as kkaennip in Korean and shiso in Japanese—that explores how plants carry histories of migration, colonization, and cultural translation. The work draws from interviews, conversations, and collaborative encounters with seed savers, farmers, botanists, cooks, and others with relationships to Perilla, making use of these exchanges as both research material and generative approaches to my creative practice. Combining botanical research with embodied engagement in cultivation and cooking practices, Exsiccata Diaspora: Perilla places historical documentation in dialogue with contemporary plant knowledge.
Fungi in Brine / Edible Mushroom Preservation
Sometimes we happen upon a large quantity of mushrooms and want to preserve them for future enjoyment, but dehydration isn’t appropriate for the variety. In this workshop we will sample and explore brine-based methods for preserving edible mushrooms. Techniques include: salt brine, vinegar brine, and kimchi.
Family Friendly Offering
Ginger Brooks-Takahashi
is a transdisciplinary artist and educator. Her performance, installation, and site responsive works examine our relationships to the mediums that connect us. These public projects are platforms for intimate interaction, an extension of feminist and queer praxis. Ginger’s work in foodways, foraging, and other folk traditions inform her practice of being rooted in place. Recently, she created Perilla People’s Garden for the 59th Carnegie International. She received her BA from Oberlin College, 1999; attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, 2007; and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Eat The Epstein Class: What Fungi Teaches Us About Decomposing Extractive Capitalism
This talk reframes the revelations of the Epstein class not as evidence of political corruption, but as a map of industrial capitalism's "waste logic", applied to both land and living organisms. Using fungi as its lens, it explores how decomposition—not purity—offers a model for transforming contamination. It then expands into the evolution of fungal metabolism, the imbalance of accumulation, the accelerationist trap (left vs. right), Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and the latest research on collective consciousness—inviting us to be unburdened not through denial, but through recognizing that trauma was never ours to carry alone.
Angel Schatz
Raised in Missouri with ten siblings, their first mushroom was the Destroying Angel—a fitting introduction to the power and mystery of fungi. Before leading Central Texas Mycological Society, they worked as an experience designer and animator in tech, then left to tap into the earth’s mycelial network. Now a forager, urban gardener, and mycology educator, they help communities connect to the fungal kingdom through joyful, community-powered practices—from growing mushrooms on recycled blocks to using mycorrhizae for drought resilience, building both soil and solidarity.
Central Texas Mycological Society
Follow her foraging adventures on Instagram.
Power of Stories
Sharing indigenous knowledge about Cordyceps from this continent and exploring stories as a way to ignite the imagination and retain knowledge.
Robert Kelly-Cáceres
Robert has been an amateur mycologist since 2006. In 2014, he co-founded Gulf Coast Mushrooms where he grew edible and medicinal mushrooms in Sarasota, Florida. In 2016, he published Common South Florida Fungi, a field guide of mushrooms local to that area. Robert moved in 2017 to Tepoztlán, Morelos, México. In 2024, he self-published Carnivorous Mushrooms of the Obsidian Butterfly, a guide for entomopathogenic fungi of Central Mexico
Robert has given talks and workshops about entomopathogenic fungi as well as Tempeh growing workshops in Morelos, Mexico City, Mexico State, Oaxaca, and Jalisco. Some of the mushroom fairs he’s participated include amongst others: BioFungaFest, Mushroom Fair of Las Lagunas de Zempoala, FungiFest, and Fiesta de Hongos Mixtecos. His passion is in hunting and documenting wild entomopathogenic fungi. He also grows Cordyceps militaris as medicine and is doing genetic work to cultivate local wild edible mushrooms like “Trainwrecker” and “American Shiitake”.
Fiber Arts with Plants and Mushrooms
Papermaking and Natural Dyeing are two craft practices that involve making art directly with the bodies of plants and mushrooms, and both offer versatile pathways for creative expression. We'll explore the process of turning plant fibers and mushrooms into sheets of beautiful handmade paper, as well as how to dye paper pulp and textiles with natural dyes. Everyone will be able to make some paper and dye a bandanna to take home with them. We'll also discuss ethical harvesting practices and how to identify or cultivate species suitable for fiber arts. Maximum 20 participants.
Emma Percy
Emma is an interdisciplinary eco-artist, herbalist, community organizer, and educator. Their work focuses on building intimacy with the more-than-human world through daily observation, seasonal rituals, and creative practice with natural materials. They live on the edge of the Connecticut River in Vermont, part of the traditional homelands of the Abenaki people, with their partner, dog, and gardens.
Painting with Fungal Pigments
This creative workshop will introduce the art and science of fungal pigments, including identifying wild species, as well as extraction methods for dyes, inks and stains, and their application. The presentation will explore novel pigments such as fungal melanin, UV-fluorescent, spalting, and lichen-derived pigments. The workshop will conclude with a studio session, where participants will paint with a selection of fungal pigments on wood.
Family Friendly offering
Sneha Ganguly
Sneha Ganguly is an interdisciplinary artist, also known as Kali Mushrooms. Sneha identifies and studies wild fungi with a special interest in biological materials and pigments, and synthesizes their alchemical and chitinous properties to create handmade papers, inks, dyes and extracts. Her work explores the potential of novel mushroom-based materials, including extraordinary pigments such as melanin, decay processes such as spalting, and unique methods such as fermentation dyeing. Her current research and aesthetic interests speculate fungal materiality, technologies and futures.
Friction Fire Practice
Learn about different friction fire uses across space and time and get hands-on practice birthing a fire by friction!
Family Friendly Offering
Raei Bridges
is a creature of the land, a weaver of connections, a creator of many things, founder of Black&Wild & youth educator +nature connection mentor.
Making Herbal Fruit Shrubs
In this workshop and conversation we will be demonstrating the preparation of an infused vinegar with seasonal fruit, herbs, mushrooms and honey using a folk intuitive method. Drinking vinegars, shrubs and oxymels are traditional methods for herbal infusions and fruit preservation with origins connected to present day SWANA region. Shrubs can be used as exciting ingredients for mocktails, tonics, cocktails, salad dressings, desserts and more. This demo will be tasty! :)
Family Friendly Offering
Yiyi and Adam
are founders of Yesfolk Tonics, a small family-owned brewery and cultural community space that specializes in traditional fermented and functional beverages like kombucha and kombucha vinegar. We use our platform for cultural preservation by centering foodways of diasporic and immigrant communities, the living traditions of herbalism and fermentation, ancestral healing modalities for self and communal care, and folk ritual.
MORE PRESENTERS TO BE RELEASED SOON!..STAY TUNED AND PLEASE REGISTER AHEAD OF TIME <3