About

In 2009, artists Mandy Stapleford and Siena Sanderson, came upon the macro photography book, Seeds: Time Capsules of Life by Wolfgang Stuppy and Rob Kessler. The book inspired them to produce an interdisciplinary art exhibition and the Seed Exploratorium. Nine artists responded in nine different media to this root idea through a SEED exhibition at the Stables Gallery in Taos, New Mexico USA, in October 2009.  One year later, 14 artists in 15 media participated in SEED 2.

The popularity and success of the 2009 and 2010 SEED shows inspired the production of an even larger and more in-depth show for 2011. The long-term goal of the SEED curators is not only to make this an annual Taos event, but also to inspire other artists and educators around the country and the world to create their own SEED shows.

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization. The formation of the seed completes the process of reproduction in seed plants (started with the development of flowers and pollination), with the embryo developed from the zygote and the seed coat from the integuments of the ovule.
Photo by Geraint Smith

Seeds have been an important development in the reproduction and spread of flowering plants, relative to more primitive plants like mosses, ferns and liverworts, which do not have seeds and use other means to propagate themselves. This can be seen by the success of seed plants (both gymnosperms and angiosperms) in dominating biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands both in hot and cold climates.

The term seed also has a general meaning that predates the above — anything that can be sown i.e. "seed" potatoes, "seeds" of corn or sunflower "seeds". In the case of sunflower and corn "seeds", what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or hull, and the potato is a tuber. (sourced from Wikipedia  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed)