“Seeds do change, but in conversation with place.”
Field note, August 2025
SeedWays, Ireland

Close-up of textured wood surface with organic grain patterns, evoking growth and natural systems

GrainCommons is a transnational artistic project connecting Ireland and the Nordic region.

Working across field, harvest and kitchen, the project approaches seed and grain as culture rather than commodity, carried through memory, labour and story.

It brings together interconnected strands of agricultural archival research, community-engaged seed-based practice, and grain-focused inquiry. The project explores how past and present meet through seed and grain, and how these cycles continue into the future.

Artistic creation sits at the centre of this process, fostering both cross-border cultural dialogue and strengthening European collaboration through shared agricultural heritage.

Developed by ikkeirute.art and an expanding network of partners, GrainCommons opens a space for cultural exchange across contexts.

GrainCommons will unfold through gatherings, seed listening circles and shared events across each partner country, culminating in a touring multisensory installation with artistic work from Ireland and Nordic partners.

SeedWays

Anna King is Co-Lead Artistic Partner for SeedWays (Ireland). She brings to the project a participatory, field-based approach rooted in listening, relationship and ecological awareness. Her work contributes to both the research and the creation of new artistic outputs, including visual, photographic and sensory-led works that emerge through direct engagement with land, seed, and community.

Wood surface with shadow and crack, suggesting light, time, and material change — Memory re-emerging through cycles of growth, decay and renewal.

Grounded in seed stewardship, food heritage and lived rural knowledge, SeedWays emphasises the inseparable relationship between seed and soil. Both are understood as living systems, shaped through memory and adaptation, carrying knowledge that unfolds through time and relationship.

Through gatherings, workshops and public-facing work, the project opens up wider, intergenerational conversations. It brings forward knowledge and practice from older generations, sharing this with younger people to support the continuation of seed knowledge and food traditions in a time of ecological change.

In this exchange, knowledge is both preserved and reworked in response to changing conditions.

This interplay of continuity and change is mirrored in how seeds adapt across generations, sustaining diversity and resilience over time. Within this context, SeedWays contributes to wider conversations around seed heritage, adaptation and sovereignty in Ireland and beyond.

Partners:

GrainCommons is currently in development, with an expanding network of partners:

Denmark Partner

ikkeirute.art - Copenhagen: Sacramento Roselló, Letícia Stallone & Claudia Adeath.

Semilla | Frø | Seed | Насіння is an audiovisual project exploring bread as both daily ritual and cultural document. It traces wheat’s journey from seed to sustenance through fieldwork, photography, film and sound, forming a multisensory archive of memory, resilience and shared food heritage.

Ireland

SeedWays, led by Anna King, explores seed stewardship, ecological memory and intergenerational knowledge through participatory, field-based practice and sensory-led artistic work.

Finland

Elisa Kraatari from Turku.

(Images by Anna King)

GrainCommons - SeedWays