Munyonyo, Uganda, 2023

I regard mushrooms as nature’s healers, unfortunately less well known. This is perhaps because most mushrooms still remain hidden from the human gaze. You might think that the figures of the fungus and the healer are most clearly linked by their many capacities for healing, amongst we count the antibiotic penicillin, and cyclosporine, the immunosuppressant which forms the basis of the organ transplantation process.

But the connection that I find most striking is their form, which is of a beneficial body created by an extensive underlying organ made up of billions of connections. In one, the fungus we see emerging from the ground is the product of a huge web of vegetal connections called hyphae.

In the other, if we imagine the healer as a reservoir of knowledge, that knowledge is a result of the sum of experiences and encounters with people that have been present throughout this person’s life, a social network.