Fungi: An Alien Encounter

Are fungi out to get us or here to help? Neither animal nor vegetable, they are both amongst us and within us, shaping or lives in ways it is difficult to imagine. They can also be very tasty. An exhibition of mushrooms at Somerset House in London prompts Matthew Sweet to look at what we can learn from them, the way they grow and depictions of them in the arts. Francesca Gavin is curator of Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of the Fungi, which runs at Somerset House in London from Jan 31st to April 26th 2020. It features the work of 40 artists, musicians and designers from Cy Twombly to Beatrix Potter, John Cage to Hannah Collins. Author and mycologist Merlin Sheldrake's forthcoming book Entangled Life is published 7th May 2020 by Penguin Random House. Sam Gandy is an ecologist, writer and researcher who has collaborated with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College. And Begoña Aguirre-Hudson is Curator and Mycologist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She helps look after the Kew Fungarium - the largest collection of fungi in the world. https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/begona-aguirre-hudson Producer: Alex Mansfield