matsutake worlds research group

HOW THINGS HOLD:
A Diagram of Coordination In A Satoyama Forest, 2019

This series of pen-and-ink drawings and text are part of an article for a special journal issue on multispecies ethnography with Matsutake Worlds Research Group (Timothy Choy, Lieba Faier, Michael Hathaway, Miyako Inoue, Shiho Satsuka, and Anna Tsing).

The article experiments with combining three concepts — coordination, assemblage, diagram — to make vivid the contingency and composition of a satoyama forest in central Japan. The drawings aim to tell a story and perform a diagrammatic analysis of how the forest comes to life as a more-than-human assemblage that emerges through coordinations established by evolutionary and historical accommodations to life cycles, seasonal rhythms, and activity patterns. Intended to be read in sequence like a flipbook, the drawings present the socialities of people, plants, and woodlands that condition the flourishing or decline of wild matsutake mushrooms.

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