Beyond a World on Hold: The Ecological Imaginaries of Seed Banking, The Posthumanities Hub & Bioart Lab Webinar [14/3/2023, 2:15 Μ.Μ. – 4 Μ.Μ. UTC+02]
Seed banking has become a hopeful technology of ex situ conservation in the face of biodiversity loss. Through storing seeds in liminal, often frozen, states, seed banks create valuable living archives. This talk brings together four seed banking practices ranging from iconic global seed vaults in the Norwegian Arctic and the UK to a forest gene bank in Poland and a food sovereignty seed bank in Palestine. It asks: what are these practices saving (for)? But also: what escapes them?
I follow the patterns of collection, containment, and cultivation through three carrier seeds as narrative devices: a black bean, a banana wild relative, and an endangered white cucumber to observe shifting, sometimes conflicting, understandings of mastery, vulnerability, and sovereignty. I will suggest that these concepts are produced in practice, in relation to ecological imaginaries of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ that differ in their politics and ethics of saving.
Please register for this zoom session, using this link: http://bit.ly/4034U2H
