Instagram story viewer> @specialnothing> Tagged

phyllis ma 马冠群

@specialnothing

11.6K

followers

1610

following

artist/photographer based in the Swiss Alps
🍄 @mushroomsandfriends
🐴 @poney.studio

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

🗣️New zine! (Link in bio to purchase)

“Mushroom Fever”
Essays by Phyllis Ma
Edited by Ren Moreau (@acorn__cup)
Designed by Sam Bruchez (@trickedbytrash)

“Mushroom Fever” explores the history of the first mushroom club in New York City—the 19th century New York Mycological Club.

Cornelia C. Bedford founded the organization in 1897 with the goals of studying and eating wild fungi. She was a cooking teacher and food writer who also created the snickerdoodle cookie.

The club’s lively social events around the city included bicycle forays, cooking demonstrations and Chinatown mushroom dinners. After a few exhilarating years, the New York Mycological Club dissolved and its demise remains a mystery.

• 32 pages, soft cover, staple-bound
• First printing of 200
• 1 color risograph
• Printed in New York City by @luckyrisograph

Available now online :
phyllisma.com/shop

Coming soon to select bookstores!

3

2

👋🍄 NYC’s very first Fungus Festival is just a week away!

1. Flyer design: @ethancrenson
Photo: me

2. Flyer design: @fungus_fairy
Chinese translation: my mom

3. my new bumper stickers that I’ll be giving away at the festival!

See you there! 🫡🍄

Follow and join @newyorkmyc for more info

901

15

lovely walk with @mushroomsinberlin in Tegel Forest! #bluehairmushroomclub

IDs are best guesses, feel free to correct:

1. Marasmius (?)
3. Auriscalpium vulgare
4. Sphaerobolus stellatus
5. Bulgaria inquinans
6. Bulgaria inquinans
7. Scutelleridae eggs (thanks @damontighe)
8. Mycena (?)
9. Clitocybe nebularis

1k

25

@helenr wrote about @specialnothing ‘s fantastic third edition of “Mushroom & Friends" which presents fungi in all their alien glory. The mushroom has been her muse across a series of these zines, and also shows off Ma’s incredible sense of style and humor in still life. Read and see more on @newyorkerphoto Photo Booth and just a little shroomy existential dread below from the article:

"In the mind of a human preoccupied with such things as mortality and the irrevocable passage of time, any serious contemplation of the world of mushrooms edges toward nightmare. Even an ordinary supermarket button cap is so physical, so fragile, with a strangeness verging on the alien and a potent whiff of death and decay. Some mushrooms are edible, others exquisitely poisonous. Like plants, mushrooms root and grow, but they’re not plants. Like animals, they seek and digest food, but they’re not animals.”

589

18

Phyllis Ma’s photographs of mushrooms celebrate the grotesqueness of her fungal subjects while insisting on their aesthetic eloquence. Her studied arrangements are more like portraits than still-lifes. Plucked from their roots, the fungi quickly begin “changing before my eyes,” Ma said. Some take on new color, others fold in on themselves, as if in fear. “I feel like the mushroom is telling me what to do and how to make it look good.” See more of Ma’s saturated, otherworldly images of mushrooms at the link in our bio.

18k

174

On Photo Booth: The Mushroom as Muse. Phyllis Ma's images present fungi in all their alien glory. Text by Helen Rosner. Link/bio.

495

21

Amazing article written in @nytimes about the @historicgreenwood phenology project. It was written with support of our very own @greenwoodzombie, @pcpalmer3 and @specialnothing

🍄: Split Gil (Schizophyllum commune)
📸: @tonjethilesen
📰: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/style/greenwood-cemetery-mushrooms.html

#Schizophyllumcommune #Schizophyllum #phenology #greenwood #greenwoodcemetery #nyt #nytimes #article #newyorkmyc #newyorkmycologicalsociety #word #definitions #wordoftheday #mycotalk #mushrooms #mushroom #mycology #fungi #fungus #mushroomsofinstagram #mushroomphotography #mycologydefinition #mycologysociety #mycologyclub #🍄

124

4

Take a Hike part 3 drops tomorrow 🥾🏔

2k

10

Now Open! Printed Matter is thrilled to participate in the Virtual Art Book Fair (VABF) organized by Tokyo Art Book Fair (TABF). Originally scheduled for Fall 2020 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, VABF is a virtual alternative, taking place from Monday, November 16–Monday, November 23, 2020. Our booth presents a selection of artists’ books, including titles from Printed Matter’s publication program, as well as new and recent fundraising editions by artists Farah Al Qasimi, Moyra Davey, Coco Fusco, David Horvitz, Joseph Kosuth, Louise Lawler, Alicia Nauta, Cauleen Smith, Didier William, and more.

Each year since its founding in 2009, the Tokyo Art Book Fair has brought publishers, galleries, and artists to Tokyo from around the world to create a platform of innovative expression for all things printed. Their aim for the Virtual Art Book Fair is to utilize their experiences and connections to create a space where people can discover new art books and meet like-minded people in this new realm of the virtual. VABF will connect with visitors digitally: offering exhibitor booths, lectures, talk shows, signing events, and more features that capture the allure of all types of printed media. VABF will also continue TABF’s Guest Country series, directing their focus this year on The Netherlands.

VABF considers this to be an era of experimentation, promising not to lose sight of TABF’s DIY spirit and sense of humor as they test out new possibilities, preparing a variety of exciting events, exhibitions, and features to give you a multi-layered, multi-faceted experience of the art books.

Follow the link in our bio to visit the fair and find us on the potato 🥔

372

4

9

0

The second instalment of Phyllis Ma’s 'Mushrooms & Friends' expands on the photography of foraged and cultivated mushrooms in phantasmagoric settings. Familiar gilled mushrooms are featured alongside spongy, stalkless and club-like fungi. The collection is then juxtaposed with visceral props – a sliced orange powdered with tumeric, purple daisies on green sugar, the veiny texture of a cabbage leaf – and transformed into otherworldly assemblages. Available through our online shop (link in bio) 🍄✨ @specialnothing #mushroomsandfriends #phyllisma #mushrooms #shrooms #fungi #psychedelia #stilllife #artbooks #photography #books #zines #londonbookshops #thephotographersgallery

25

1

Phyllis Ma, Mushrooms & Friends #2, 2020. #librairieladispersion #newinstock #mushrooms

53

2