ON ARCHIVING EDEN: THE INTRICACIES OF DOCUMENTING SEED-BANKS AROUND THE WORLD
By Dornith Doherty and Giovanni Aloi | 6:30 PM IST | 23 August 2020
Since 2008 Dornith Doherty has worked in an ongoing collaboration with renowned biologists in the most comprehensive international seed banks in the world: the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service’s National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Colorado, the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in England; and PlantBank, Threatened Flora Centre, and Kings Park Botanic Gardens in Australia. In this era of climate change and declining biodiversity, by collecting, researching seed biology, and storing seeds in secure vaults, seed banks play a vital role in ensuring the survival of genetic diversity in wild and agricultural species. Utilizing the archives’ on-site x-ray equipment that is routinely used for viability assessments of accessioned seeds, she documents and subsequently collages the seeds and tissue samples stored in these crucial collections. The amazing visual power of magnified x-ray images, which springs from the technology’s ability to record what is invisible to the human eye, illuminates her considerations not only of the complex philosophical, anthropological, and ecological issues surrounding the role of science and human agency in relation to gene banking, but also of the poetic questions about life and time on a macro and micro scale.
In this conversation with art historian Giovanni Aloi, who writes about nature in visual culture, Dornith discusses her artistic practice, the way seed banks are tied to economic systems, political histories, migration routes and the massive efforts undertaken by biologists and conservation agencies to protect biodiversity.
The discussion with Dornith Doherty and Giovanni Aloi will premier on Youtube at 6:30 PM IST on 23 August 2020, which will be followed by a live Q&A session with the speakers on Zoom at 7:30 PM IST.
About the Speakers
A 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Dornith Doherty is an artist whose work is concerned with our stewardship of the natural environment. Her photographic project Archiving Eden is an extensive, dual-faceted body of work. Collaborating with scientists and seed banks on five continents, she has traced in precise detail the elaborate systems of secure spaces and technological interventions required for botanical preservation. She reflects upon poetic questions about life and time through artworks created from x-rays captured from seeds, tissue samples, and cloned plants preserved in these collections. Doherty’s work has been exhibited and collected widely in the US and abroad.
Giovanni Aloi is an art historian in modern and contemporary art. He studied History of Art and Art Practice in Milan and then moved to London in 1997 to further his studies at Goldsmiths University, where he obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Art History, a Master in Visual Cultures, and a Doctorate on the subject of natural history in contemporary art. Giovanni currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York and London, and Tate Galleries. He has curated art projects involving photography and the moving image and is a BBC TV and radio contributor. His work has been translated in Chinese, French, Russian, Polish, and Spanish. His first book titled Art & Animals was published in 2011 and since 2006 he has been the Editor in Chief of Antennae, the Journal of Nature in Visual Culture.
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