SeedWays
SeedWays is Anna King’s Irish artistic and ethnographic enquiry into seed sovereignty and seed as living inheritance, developed as part of GrainCommons, a Nordic-European artistic research collective exploring grain as living cultural heritage.
Bringing together artists and researchers across Ireland, Finland, Denmark and Norway, GrainCommons develops distinct, place-based enquiries into relationships between seed, grain, cultivation, ecological knowledge, cultural memory and contemporary life. The collaboration has received Opstart development funding from the Nordic Culture Fund, supporting the development of the collective framework, artistic exchange and individual case studies.
The next phase will bring these situated enquiries into dialogue through artistic research and exchange, culminating in a touring exhibition and public programme across the participating countries.
The Irish Enquiry
At the heart of SeedWays is an exploration of the relationship between inheritance and change: how seed, knowledge and agricultural practice are carried forward while continually responding to people, place and changing conditions.
The current case study follows cultivated grain through the growing cycle, from seed and sowing through germination, growth and harvest, before returning again to seed. Through repeated seasonal encounters with growers, seed custodians and farming communities, Anna explores what is retained, adapted, interrupted or renewed, and who has agency in shaping what is carried forward.
Working through photography, drawing and watercolour, sound, moving image, poetic prose and ethnographic conversation, Anna moves between scales, from seed held in a hand to the wider relationships and landscape. Her methodology is one of encounter, attention, making and return, allowing knowledge, memory and different perspectives to emerge through sustained engagement with people and place.
Through seeing, listening and returning, SeedWays explores what artistic practice can reveal about the relationships through which living inheritance continues through change.
As the project develops, the Irish research will enter into dialogue with the distinct enquiries emerging across partner countries, contributing artwork and research to the collective touring exhibition and public programme.
Partners
Denmark: Sacramento Roselló, Letícia Stallone & Claudia Adeath. ikkeirute.art
Norway: Nikki Hayes
Finland: Elisa Kaatrari
Ireland: Anna King
