(Photo courtesy of Rad Myco)
The four-day, fungi-focused educational and arts festival Rad Myco has announced the full schedule for its seventh biennial incarnation.
Kicking off September 26, the event will host over 60 mushroom-related workshops and special events with authors and experts from Palestine, Japan, Ireland and across North America. Hands-on workshops and presentations will cover a range of topics, including low-cost mushroom growing, medicinal mushroom processing, the strangeness of fungal biology, citizen science in mycology (the study of fungi), sustainable living via fungi, and ways that mushrooms have influenced human cultures throughout history.
Headlining speakers include Dr. Christoopher Hobbs, author of Christopher Hobbs’s Medicinal Mushrooms; Peter McCoy, author of Radical Mycology and The Mycocultural Revolution; Dr. Seri Robinson, author of Spalted Wood; Dr. Kevin Feeney, author of Fly Agaric; and Dr. Gerald Pollack, author of The Fourth Phase of Water.
Part of what sets Rad Myco apart from most mushroom-centered events is how it extends far beyond the sciences of mycology and into its various arts and cultural impacts. The event curates an on-site art show, In/Visible Signals, with this year’s show featuring over 35 international fungi-focused artists of various media. Several video art installations will be a part of the show, including the ten-minute-long virtual reality experience Hypha from the Museo del Hongo in Chile.
Rad Myco also holds a variety of special, fungi-inspired events each day. Several competitions offer attendees the chance at prizes — with the most ridiculous event being the MycOlympics: a team-based series of challenges.
Attendees can also contribute to citizen science by taking part in the Rad MycoBlitz, wherein mushrooms collected from the farm are identified and later genetically sequenced to help researchers understand the growth habits of fungi.
The event commences at 12pm on Thursday, September 26 on the 40 acres of Brown Bottle Farm in Mulino, Oregon (14711 S Buckner Creek Rd., Mulino, OR 97042), just 30 minutes south of Portland. Activities conclude Sunday, September 29 at 9pm.
Single-day and four-day tickets, along with full program details and workshop descriptions, are available at radmyco.com/collections/2024-rad-myco.