grow.haus is a collection of objects grown from mycelium — small furniture and lamps cultivated from oyster mushroom and hemp hurd. Artist Jordan Metz molded and constructed the works using traditional ceramic slab-building techniques, treating the process less as fabrication and more as collaboration: coaxing form from a living organism and letting the mycelium's networked growth contribute what the artist describes as the material's strength and lightness.
For Metz, a digital artist, the material marks a departure that is also a homecoming. grow.haus extends a long inquiry into digital identity: among the works are sculptural self-portraits cast in mycelium, figures for the multiplicity each of us carries online — the many selves, handles, and avatars that never quite resolve into one. "Mycelium embodies this concept to the fullest degree," Metz writes.
Mycelium - the vast networks of interconnected hyphae that facilitate the exchange of nutrients, water, and chemical signals between plants and fungi - are an example of the resilience of interrelationship. They are responsible for producing and maintaining ecosystems where its members can adapt in the midst of environmental changes. So, it's particularly apt that the inaugural exhibition of localhost features mycelium - it's an inspiration for the kind of social ecologies and creative economies that the gallery hopes to see flourish.
Ecology and economy share a single root — oikos, the Greek word for household. In the Ancient Greek sense, the word "household" meant not only the physical structure, but also the kin group (read: community) and the economic unit. In computing, "localhost" refers to "this computer" or "myself," in networking terms. Every network, in the computing world, is made of localhosts — and every network, in the mycelial world, is made of individual hyphae. Change starts from within and flows into your community.
This is the ethos behind localhost and its exploration of collective ownership of art: adapting frameworks like partial common ownership, testing forms of joint stewardship, and inventing schemes of its own. The specific instruments must be created by and with the community that will use them. What is held in common might be a single work, the exhibition, or the gathering. localhost is proposed as a network stewarded by those who show up for it. Metz's contribution is offered in exactly this spirit: toward, in the artist's words, "a new mode of art stewardship that is more networked, more collective, and more aligned with the economic needs of contemporary emerging artists."
The matching of artist, chef, and gallerist is itself a result of networked connections. Artist Jordan Metz and Shen-Shen Wu, founder of localhost gallery, met through the Gray Area Cultural Incubator, where both are currently residents. Chef Robert Hurtado, founder of La Biblioteca, was introduced to Shen-Shen via her partner, who has known Hurtado for over a decade from working together in the hospitality industry. These are the relationships that localhost gallery seeks to recognize and make tangible via networks of collective stewardship.
