Rhizoma Exhibition

Rhizoma: Modern Latin botanical term adopted from Ancient Greek. The term describes horizontal, subterranean root-like structures, more commonly called rhizomes. In philosophy, “rhizomatic” refers to interconnected, horizontal networks.

A network of metalsmiths has been quietly spreading under the ground and across two continents for twenty years, stemming from the original connection between Meiing Hsu and Sarah Perkins. The artists represented here are nodes in a rhizomatic structure–their pieces are the visible shoots emerging from the soil. Hsu and Perkins, the metalsmithing professors at Tainan National University of the Arts in Tainan, Taiwan, and Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, respectively, initiated a residency exchange for their students and recent graduates. Today, Amal Yung-Huei Chao and Jin A. Seo are the professors selecting artists from their programs at TNNUA and MSU. By the time of this exhibition, more than twenty emerging metalsmiths have been part of this residency exchange. This residency has grown organically out of that original relationship: each node spreading, connecting, and sharing to build a vast interconnected system extending far beyond the universities, professors, and direct participants.

Hsu and Perkins, both masters in the field of metalsmithing, saw an opportunity for reciprocity. They traded their time, talent, and resources as professors to build the residency exchange. Seo and Chao continue to reciprocate by trading lectures, teaching workshops, and by working with their institutions to provide studio space and housing for the artists in the exchange. Hsu and Perkins, Chao and Seo, act as guides and facilitators in this network. They share knowledge and they give space for the visiting artists to contribute. This sharing of knowledge flows in all directions: professor to student, student to professor, artist to artist. Those who have participated in the exchange recognize the value of generosity and community. They learn, they teach, they make, and they share. The flow continues and the structure grows. The labor of two people with a common goal has yielded a legacy that is an ever-growing organism.