Fruiting Bodies reframes the mushroom as a feminist metaphor in Ying Ang's debut book for Perimeter Editions — a photographic series shot in Melbourne's inner-city parks that interrogates the fetishisation of fertility and the female body.
About This Book
Photographed close to Ang's home in Melbourne, Fruiting Bodies uses the fungal form to question the cultural logic that equates womanhood with reproductive output. Mushrooms captured in states of emergence, clustering, decay, and dispersal become uncanny stand-ins for the female body — soft, sensuous, and resistant to easy categorisation. Drawing on ecofeminist thought and evolutionary theory around postmenopausal life, Ang proposes a model of fertility that is rhizomatic rather than hierarchical: one that finds power in cycles of decay and renewal rather than in perpetual production. The result is a body of work that is as philosophically charged as it is visually precise.
Key Features
- 160 pages of close-up botanical photography exploring feminist and ecofeminist themes
- Photographs by Ying Ang
- Published by Perimeter Editions, [Details available upon request]
What You'll Discover
- How the fruiting body functions as a visual metaphor for non-reproductive female power — soft and resilient, erotic yet categorically resistant to dominant fertility symbols
- The parallel between mycelial ecosystems and the roles of postmenopausal women in sustaining communities through knowledge and cultural memory
- An ecofeminist critique of patriarchal systems that exploit both the earth and the female body through the same logic of control and utility
- A rhizomatic model of fertility — collective, disruptive, and ever-evolving — proposed as an alternative to hierarchical reproductive imperatives
About the Author
Ying Ang is a Melbourne-based artist whose photographic practice engages with feminist inquiry and the politics of the body. Fruiting Bodies is her first book published with Perimeter Editions.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 160
- Dimensions: 230 x 270 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781922545442
- Publisher: Perimeter Editions
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Photographers, artists, and thinkers working at the intersection of feminist theory, ecofeminism, and contemporary art photography.