Samual Bradley

Taking its name from the nickname for lingzhi, the reveredmedicinal mushroom in Asia, Samuel Bradley and Kat Chan’sdebut book Immortal Mushroom is a collaborative exploration ofShangri-La, a remote city in northern Yunnan, China’s mostculturally and biodiverse province.Referred to locally as the Wild West, Shangri-La’s highaltitudes of over 9,800 ft and often imposingly grandioselandscapes can seem impenetrable. While positioning itselfas a travel destination after being renamed in 2001 by thegovernment after the fictional paradise in James Hilton’s novelThe Lost Horizon, Shangri-La remains remarkably unknown.Bradley’s perspective-bending still life experiments withfruits and vegetables are interspersed with unexplained localcharacters - some presenting their offerings to camera whileothers inhabit the edges of frame or the far-away distancesof sweeping, fantastical vistas. Shunning a traditional docu-mentary approach, Bradley depicts Shangri-La as a surreal,technicolour stage upon which inanimate objects, people andlandscapes perform for the camera.Chan’s essays and poetry are a guide to the unchartedphotographic narrative, offering a mix of explanation, historyand cultural insight into a China we are rarely shown in themainstream media. An interview with Professor Zhao Kaicunilluminates the philosophy of Traditional Chinese Medicine,challenging common assumptions about what it is, and defin-ing a modern approach to the ancient practice.

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Samual Bradley N°IM Origin