Drawing Out Fungal Feminisms: An Arts Pedagogy for Mycorrhizal Care

Xalli Zúñiga

This project proposes a transdisciplinary, arts-based inquiry into the planetary care crisis, grounded in ecofeminist, ecosocialist, and decolonial frameworks from the Global South. Central to this investigation is the concept of biosocial metabolism‚the interdependent regulation of life processes across human and more-than-human systems. Fungi, particularly mycorrhizal fungi, are exemplary metabolic agents: they enable multispecies cooperation, sustain ecological cycles, and regenerate degraded environments. Drawing from these life-sustaining capacities, the project develops the concept of fungal feminisms‚ a framework for understanding how collaborative engagements between fungi and human communities can support more caring, peaceful, and ecologically attuned forms of existence, while advancing feminist critiques of domination. Through drawing-based encounters with Indigenous mushroom foragers from several communities in central Mexico, the study develops a method called drawing out, in which dialogic visual practices trace the affective, ecological, and epistemic labor of women whose knowledge is systematically marginalized under extractivist regimes. This practice reimagines self-care not as individualistic, but as relational, interdependent, and ecologically embedded. By linking participants' lived experiences to theories of metabolic rift and social reproduction, the research proposes mycorrhizal care as a critical and generative response to capitalist and colonial modes of social organization. Ultimately, the project contributes to the emerging field of feminist visual ethnomycology by mobilizing the overlooked intelligence of fungi and feminized labor to challenge extractive logics and foster pedagogical tools that promote biosocial awareness, multispecies solidarity, and ecosocial transformation.

About Xalli Zúñiga

Xalli Zúñiga is a visual artist, educator, and researcher based in Mexico. Their transdisciplinary work weaves together critical ecological justice, decolonial feminist theory, and socially engaged art, particularly through collaborations with Indigenous mushroom foragers, environmental defenders, and LGBTQ+ communities in central Mexico. Zúñiga coined the term fungal feminisms to describe a framework grounded in the metabolic, regenerative, and relational capacities of fungi as a means to reimagine social reproduction beyond extractivist and anthropocentric paradigms. Trained as both an artist and critical theorist, Zúñiga holds a dual Ph.D. in Art Education and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from The Pennsylvania State University, with previous studies at UNAM and in Europe. Their research integrates political ecology, decolonial thought, and participatory methodologies, often materialized through site-specific drawing, experimental video, and oral history. Zúñiga is co-founder of the transnational collective Bruxas Bruxas and co-creator of 1 Billion Slow Exploding Seeds, a reforestation initiative that mobilizes academic and community brigades to plant trees and edible gardens as acts of ecological and epistemic resistance. Zúñiga's writing has appeared in Hypatia, Rethinking Marxism, and philoSOPHIA. Their forthcoming article, "Fungal Flesh: Spirit-Matter, Metabolism, and the Carnal-Erotic Grounds of Ecological Justice," will appear in the Oxford University Press Intersection on Gender Justice. They are also co-editor of the forthcoming special issue Composting 'Man': Worldly Ecologies and Life/Death Affirming Perspectives. Zúñiga lives in Querétaro and works across academic, artistic, and mycorrhizal spaces to cultivate relational modes of care, resistance, and metabolic transformation.