^{Guests at Rhizome Benefit 2022, The Bowery Hotel, NYC. Photo by Marsha Lebedev Bernstein.}

As we begin our tenure as Co-Executive Directors of Rhizome, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the meaningful support we have received in recent months from artists, foundations, institutions, public agencies, and individuals in our immediate community. We are a small organization with a big mission, and we have to raise our entire budget every year. This support is incredibly meaningful, strengthening our work and the field of digital art as a whole. 

Thank you to Rafaël Rozendaal and Legowelt 

On August 26, 2022, artist Rafaël Rozendaal and musician Legowelt dropped Polychrome Music, a generative audiovisual NFT on the Art Blocks platform. With 25% of proceeds going to benefit Rhizome, the auction resulted in a gift of more than $56,000. This support is especially meaningful following Rozendaal’s 2021 donation of the largest gift in Rhizome’s history as a result of his Endless Nameless Art Blocks auction. Rozendaal’s gifts helped to support a much-needed Program Assistant position as well as a new website, designed by Laura Coombs and Mindy Seu, which will launch in the coming months. 

Rhizome Patrons’ Council

^{Aria Dean, Michael Connor, Brian Droitcour, Joel Ferree, and Peter Wu in conversation at Rhizome event co-presented with Friends with Benefits & Outland, at NeueHouse Hollywood, Los Angeles. Photo by Nilo Goldfarb.}

^{Rhizome Presents: Ryan C. Clarke's Shirley Sound & Further Processions with Friends with Benefits & Outland, Los Angeles. Photo by Nilo Goldfarb.}

Rhizome recently inaugurated a new invitation-only supporters group, the Patrons' Council. This group includes supporters with backgrounds in art, tech, and crypto who gather on a Telegram chat and at quarterly events to offer advice and support for Rhizome. The group will also support a jointly determined NFT edition to benefit Rhizome’s future. Current members include Tarun Chitra, Priyanka Desai, Tracy Chou*, Justin Gilanyi, Lindsay Howard*, Hernan Lopez, Trevor McFedries*, Greg & Yukari Pass*, Jack Pitney, Yana Sosnovskaya, and Alex Zhang. 

^{(For inquiries about Patrons’ Council, please contact makayla.bailey@rhizome.org)}

Foundation Support 

The April 2021 relaunch of the ArtBase marked a new chapter in the continued technical work undergone to improve access to Rhizome’s ArtBase as a collection. We are pleased to have been awarded a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation that supports this multi-year technical effort, and contributed to our hire of a curator who researches the archive, accessions new works, contributes to data improvement, and expands the visibility of the archive through publications and public programs. 

This fall, Rhizome received an Explorer Award, a new grant from Filecoin Foundation and Unfinished for projects increasing outreach and engagement around decentralized internet technologies. The outcome of the supported project will make a case for cultural institutions to make use of PeerTube, a mature, sophisticated, peer-to-peer, open source video hosting framework and social media platform. The grant will support advocacy for PeerTube at the No Time to Wait conference this fall in The Hague, in collaboration with the Preserving Immersive Media initiative. It will also support a forthcoming online presentation that highlights artists’ works that have been censored by corporate platforms, hosted on Rhizome’s own PeerTube instance.

Earlier this year, Rhizome was awarded a grant from The Algorand Foundation for “In Contract,” a series of commissioned artworks that use the blockchain to organize social and economic relations toward artistic ends. Drawing on conceptual, poetic, and socially engaged practices, the commissions involve pairing artists with developers to realize custom contract-based works on the Algorand blockchain. 

Rhizome Benefit 2022

^{From left to right at Rhizome’s 2022 Benefit: Makayla Bailey, honorees Rachel Rossin and Julie Martin, and Michael Connor. Photo by Marsha Lebedev Bernstein.}

On May 31, for Rhizome’s 2022 Benefit (in partnership with Zora) we chose to salute Julie Martin and Rachel Rossin, both key members of our community of differing generations. Julie Martin’s stewardship of Experiments in Art & Technology (E.A.T.) has informed important Rhizome programs, including our art-tech collaboration platform 7x7, which cited E.A.T. as a source of inspiration. Rachel Rossin took part in Rhizome’s first experiment in Artists’ VR and created a major new commission as part of the 2021 touring exhibition “World on a Wire,” in partnership with Hyundai Motor. 

^{Thank you again to our Benefit Host Committee:}

^{Bolt*, Hilary Nève*, Greg & Yukari Pass*, e•a•t•}works, Alice Lloyd George, Outland, Voice NFT, Tarun Chitra, Priyanka Desai, Lindsay Howard*, Hernan Lopez, Trevor McFedries*, Jack Pitney, Lisa Roumell*, Karen Wong*,and Alex Zhang.}

^{*Member of Rhizome's Board of Directors}

Rhizome has also received recent program support from Hyundai Motor, Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Taipei Cultural Center in New York, American Chai Trust, Jacques Louis Vidal, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, National Endowment for the Arts, the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. 

Our community of supporters make the work we do possible. We look forward to strengthening Rhizome for the years to come through our mission and program, continuing to foster community and increase access to new media art in a context of relevant information and critical discourse.

By donating to Rhizome you fund the work of artists and writers, support field-defining public programs and exhibitions, and underwrite direly-needed digital preservation efforts. To make a tax-deductible contribution to Rhizome, please visit our donation page, or contact Makayla Bailey, Co-Executive Director, at makayla.bailey@rhizome.org.