When Fungi Found Us — Cultivating an Audience for Biodiversity Conservation

Filmmaker and photographer duo Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak invite audiences on a guided journey through their two decade exploration of the hidden world of fungi. Their work has taken them from Australia’s rainforests to the cloud forests of the Himalayas, capturing fungi in ways that reveal their quiet power as recyclers, networkers, and forest builders.

Lara van Raay will be in conversation with Stephen and Catherine, Lara is a filmmaker, an impact producer and a trainer. Lara produced Follow the Rain, Stephen and Catherines award winning documentary.

Offering a rare chance to experience their breathtaking footage and photography with the people who created it. Stephen and Catherine will share stories from the field, insights from their portable time-lapse studio, and highlights from Follow the Rain, along with their contributions to major series such as Planet Earth II.

They will also take audiences inside their new book Planet Fungi: A Photographer’s Foray, co-authored with leading mycologist Dr Tom May. It is an opportunity to hear how images were made, what they discovered along the way, and how their curiosity grew into a lifelong craft. Q&A with the authors and book signing following the presentation.

It is an intimate, generous session that shows how passion, patience, and a love of the natural world can open doors to an unseen universe. In the end, it becomes clear that Stephen and Catherine did not simply find fungi. Fungi found them.