Practical
Tuesday, 21 October, 2025
- 19:00 until 21:30
Cinema RITCS
Antoine Dansaertstraat 70
1000 Brussels
Antoine Dansaertstraat 70
1000 Brussels
Soon more info
Up on the Mountain takes you deep into the forests of the American West, where Southeast Asian refugees, Latino immigrants and rural Americans follow the seasonal rhythms of wild mushroom harvesting. On foot and working in public lands, these foragers carve out a form of self-employment rooted in knowledge of nature and mutual support. For many, mushroom picking offers one of the few accessible alternatives to mainstream wage labor.
And yet, despite clear evidence of the harvest’s sustainability, the workers who supply delicacies to restaurants across Europe, Japan and North America are repeatedly denied access to public lands. In the tradition of observational documentary, director Olivier Matthon exposes the racial and class inequalities embedded in natural resource policies—while highlighting the resilience, autonomy, and ingenuity of these often invisible communities.
After the screening, join us for a conversation exploring the film’s central themes: informal economies, survival at the edges of capitalism, and the politics of access to nature. Director Olivier Matthon will share personal insights from his own life as a mushroom picker and the making of the film, while historian Benoît Henriet (VUB) reflects on foraging at the edge of capitalism.
Program
19:00 - Introduction
19:15 - Film screening
20:45 - Discussion with Olivier Matthon andBenoît Henriet, moderated by TBC
21:45 - End
Tickets
Soon more info.
Bios
Olivier Matthon is a commercial mushroom picker and documentary filmmaker who graduated with a B.A. in Ethnography, Political Ecology, and Nonfiction Writing from the Evergreen State College. His work has been published by Pioneers Press, the UTNE Reader, and High Country News Magazine. His photos of mushroom pickers were part of the 2022 exhibition “Impossible Sauvage” at the Museum of Ethnography of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Originally from Québec, he now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Benoît Henriet is Associate Professor of History at VUB and Principal Investigator of the ERC project FORAGENCY: Foraging, Colonialism and More-than-Human Agency in Central Africa. His research focuses on the (post)colonial history of Central Africa from a bottom-up perspective, with a growing emphasis on human–environment entanglements. From 2025 to 2027, he holds the Casterman-Hamers Chair in the History and Philosophy of Sciences at VUB, through which he co-curates the interdisciplinary series The Foragers, in collaboration with VUB Crosstalks and artistic researcher Gosie Vervloessem.
Part of The Foragers
In an age of urban pressure and digital acceleration, The Foragers: Engagements Beyond the Human invites us to rediscover our relationship with nature — not only in remote wilderness, but especially within the urban fabric of contemporary life. This interdisciplinary art-science project brings together artists, researchers and enthusiasts who reimagine the ancient practice of foraging as a bold, imaginative and future-facing method.