Tomato Seeds Passing Through the Body and Germinating: Luo Jr-Shin
2025/5/3 - 2025/8/2
Michael Ku gallery
[The director of the wastewater treatment plant once told me that he used to manage waste at a zoo. From the heaps of animal droppings, plants would begin to sprout. They were left to grow freely, and once fully grown, they could be fed back to the animals. He did warn me, though—never eat them yourself.
Truth be told, I wouldn't have eaten them anyway. I once watched a Western documentary in which the presenter pointed at a cluster of tiny green shoots sprouting from a heap of black soil outside a warehouse. Addressing the camera, he asked: 'Do you know what these are? They're tomatoes. And why are they here? Because people eat tomatoes, and the seeds pass through people's digestive tract, the sewers, and the wastewater system—eventually landing here and germinating.' This reminded me of yet another video an artist friend once filmed and showed me: After spraying insecticide into the storm drain behind his studio, a hundred cockroaches poured out. I've also listened to a podcast interview with a sewage worker, who spoke of the darkness, the claustrophobic spaces, and the disturbing creature inhabiting that world.
But in fact, such invisible journeys fascinate me. To me, the 'sludge cake'—a dehydrated mass of sewage that has undergone multiple stages of treatment—serves as a powerful metaphor: a symbol of what has been discarded and undesired, yet makes its way through darkness and is reborn. After a long process of negotiation and coordination, we finally obtained a batch of sludge. While handling, drying, and preparing it for firing, we were astonished to find a single, delicate green sprout emerging from the mass. I carefully transplanted it and have been tending to it ever since, quietly hoping it will grow into a real tomato plant—though I'm not sure I'd dare eat it. — Luo Jr-Shin]
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Tomato Seeds Passing Through the Body and Germinating is the latest series by LUO Jr-Shin, following his 2021 project Like a Urinal in a Nightclub. This exhibition presents his recent sculptural works alongside his signature large-scale spatial installations.
At the heart of the show is an abstract passageway evoking a sewage system, dominating the gallery space. Its inner walls are coated with a specially formulated paint derived from 'sludge cake'—a material sourced from the wastewater treatment plant and transformed through firing and grinding—creating an intense sense of physical pressure and spatial disorientation.
The new sculpture Selfing takes its name from a common reproductive strategy in the plant world—self-fertilisation—echoing the work's exploration of gender fluidity and mutable identity. His bas-reliefs draw inspiration from anatomical openings, sunken areas, and cavities—functional 'forms' through which he investigates both the surface's energy and the latent tensions that lie beneath.
The artist operates like a magician or alchemist. Through processes such as selective gathering, moulding and casting, coating, painting, and kiln-firing , and those involving materials science, chemistry, parametric structural design, and lycopene extraction , LUO engages in an interdisciplinary practice grounded in dialogue with—and responsiveness to—materials. He seeks to draw order from chaos and nourishment from the shadows.
Following on from Like a Urinal —which imagined a skewed nightclub space where perception, reception, exchange and transformation of matter quietly unfolded within a carefully choreographed, flowing scene—Tomato Seeds extends LUO's gaze to the hidden and often invisible journeys of matter.
Through the (interchangeable) 'entrances' and 'exits', he presents the ongoing cycle of excretion and reuse. Through the visualisation of matter, the artist explores instinctive human behaviours: eating, digesting, nutrient absorption, excretion, sexual desire, reproduction, fear, optimism, pleasure or even indulgence, progress, the elimination of obstacles, combat, conquest, the craving for harmony, moments of revelation, and acts of self-comfort.
Molding and casting: Lin Kuo-Wei
Production Assistants: Lu Chih-Hsin, Liu Ting-Ying, Huang Yuci, Lin Hsi-En, Chen Ping, Cheng Cheng-I, Pan Yan-Shuo, Liao Wei-Hsiang, Lai Hsuan-Tso
