The Mushroom’s of Plato’s Cave is about an illustrated, re-designed, posthuman, ecofeminist narrative of Plato’s Myth of the Cave. Plato’s Myth of the Cave has been interpreted by contemporary thinkers as emblematic of Plato’s philosophy and western culture and its anthropocentric and domineering approach to reality. By using watercolor and digital painting in the project, Francesca Brunetti transforms this myth into an alternative eco-feminist visual narrative. The protagonist of the transformed myth is a person who—instead of going up, in the direction of the sun and abstract thinking, as does the male prisoner in Plato’s myth—goes down, underground, in a world populated by fungi, worms and bacteria. Through imagination and drawing, Brunetti creates a visual description where the protagonist of the transformed Plato’s myth discovers a way to relate to her material world that challenges traditional western anthropocentric approaches to reality. In the story traditional western ways of relating to existence—based on a self-centered understanding of the self, the division between body and mind, the understanding of matter as homogeneous and passive and the importance of rationality and control—are replaced with actions and feelings that promote the protagonist’s embeddedness in her material world, her understanding of her interconnection with the elements composing reality, and the transformative potential of ecological joy. By exploring nature’s agency and creativity, the protagonist of Brunetti’s myth gains energies and resources to understand and transform her material existence. The project is a collaboration with the Posthumanities Hub at Linköping University, a platform that fosters new ideas and alliances in the humanities, especially those related to more-than-human perspectives.

Francesca Brunetti, a scholar and Lecturer at the Institute of Creativity and Innovation at Xiamen University in China. With a PhD in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Texas, Dallas, as well as a MA in Communication Design from the Glasgow School of Art and a MA and BA in Philosophy from La Sapienza University of Rome, her work is deeply informed by feminist philosophy and ecocriticism. She has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows across the USA, UK, Italy, China, and Japan, has held teaching appointments at American, European, and Asian universities; presented artistic projects at international academic conferences; and published articles about her work in peer-reviewed journals.

Feminist theory informs her studio art practice while her artworks provide additional elements to her theoretical investigations into feminism and ecology. Brunetti uses 2D analogue and digital artistic techniques, feminist philosophy, and ecocriticism to explore the relationship between female subjectivity and her material existence, the ecocritical approach to visual cultures, and the representation of women in cultural productions.