Fruiting Bodies by Ying Ang, Perimeter Editions

Ying Ang uses the mushroom as a feminist metaphor to challenge dominant narratives surrounding fertility, the female body, and reproduction. Through the fungal model, she proposes a vision of fertility that is collective, rhizomatic, and transformative—much like the mycelium, which invisibly shapes entire ecosystems.

Visual artist Ying Ang reimagines the mushroom as both a biological form and a feminist metaphor: an emergent, generative force that questions prevailing ideas about fertility and the female body. She explores how the fetishization of fertility shapes cultural perceptions of women, nature, and reproduction, while challenging the assumption that growth and abundance must ultimately serve a reproductive imperative. Instead, the fungal model offers a conception of fertility that is rhizomatic rather than hierarchical, collective rather than possessive, and disruptive rather than obedient. Like the mycelium hidden beneath the forest floor yet fundamental to the health of entire ecosystems, women continue to shape society in profound and often unseen ways.

Fruiting Bodies, Ying Ang. Perimeter Editions, 2022.