The Desire of Fungus

作品賞析

When we get all wound up struggling through life for fame, fortune, and adulation, have we ever thought about what life’s rewards really are? The two orbs in Mushroom Desires: Besiegement and Fall are comprised of what appear to be countless little beech mushrooms that symbolize the people of all classes trying to struggle through life day after day. Hsieh I-Ting uses these slender-bodied, big-headed mushrooms to represent people whose bodies are gradually distorted as they feed their desires: their heads swell but their torsos are enfeebled. There are two parallel and opposing worlds where people mechanically go through their cycles. The mushrooms on the left are at the end of life, and their reward is the pure water in the artificial bathtub. The mushrooms on the right, meanwhile, are arranged in orderly layers, suggesting that each is fixed in a particular social class. They seem to have bright colors, but the end of life for them is an inchoate darkness and bottomless fall.