The Culturing Dish

The Culturing Dish is a growing grassroots network for people who find themselves circling back to fungi, whether through science, growing, art, land work, education, foraging, or simple curiosity. It was created for people who might otherwise be working in separate little pockets, especially those near the beginning of their mycological journey, so there is somewhere to meet and feel part of a wider fungal community. This session will begin with a short introduction to The Culturing Dish: why it started, what it is becoming, and what we have been hearing from the community so far. From there, we will open into a wider conversation around the question, “How is mycology changing for you?” Rather than fixing the panel to one narrow corner of the field, the discussion will bring together people with different relationships to fungi and different experiences of the ways mycology is shifting. There will be space to speak honestly about the harder bits: funding gaps, access barriers, regulation, scientific bottlenecks, conservation pressures, and the odd feeling that fungi are suddenly everywhere while support for fungal work still feels patchy. But this is not a doom and gloom session. It is also about what is already beginning to grow: the unexpected conversations, the new routes in, the shared knowledge, and the small but stubborn networks that keep appearing. Basically, a room full of people gathered around fungi, thinking together about what comes next. Mush love, The Culturing Dish x