Huiyan Zhang/ Summer Issue

Huiyan Zhang’s work is driven by her deep passion for nature, particularly shaped by her experiences walking through forests. These moments led her to explore the entanglements of nature, plant morphology, and the microscopic world, with a focus on fungi and their connection to human experience. Her practice delves into themes of repair, rebirth, the Anthropocene, and new symbiosis, where human-made materials such as plastic intertwine with natural forms, creating unintended connections between life and the environment.

Experimentation is central to her creative process. Through photography, video, and drawing, Huiyan integrates natural forms into her printmaking. She draws inspiration from macro photographs of fungi and videos of plastic waste found in nature, extracting stills and digitally processing them before incorporating them into her work using photo transfer techniques.

Influenced by Merlin Sheldrake’s writings on fungi and Wim van Egmond’s macro photography, Huiyan reimagines the relationship between humans and non-human life, offering a contemporary perspective on the interconnectedness of life in the Anthropocene.