SEED MATTER
This work has been commented by 2 curator(s). Read the comments
Title
SEED MATTER
Headline
SEED MATTER
Concept author(s)
Christine Mackey
Concept author year(s) of birth
30071968
Concept author(s) contribution
Devised/conceived and produced work.
Concept author(s) Country
Ireland
Friendly Competition
Competition category
Mobilization
Competition field
nonacademic
Competition subfield
artist
Subfield description
I am an artist and independent researcher who employs diverse disciplines, subject matter and tactics in devising works that can generate different kinds of knowledge of place - their hidden histories and ecological formations. Using diverse graphic sources and quasi-scientific methods, my work explores the interactive potential of art as a research tool and its capacity for social and environmental change. I work from a rural base in North-Leitrim, whilst extending the boundary of my practice in an international context through residency programmes.
Check out the Food Democracy 2013 outlines of Memefest Friendly competition.
Description of idea
Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:
SEED MATTER is housed under the collective title: ‘The Politics of Seeds’, which has evolved into various productions: Art and Sustainable Residency (2013) Cambridge, U.K; solo exhibition at Limerick City Gallery of Art (2013) – [with launch of publication late February]; Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2012) and the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny; (2011); a site-visit to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway (2010); a publication ‘TRADE OFF Planters’ (2009-2010) - a seed exchange event through TRADE (2009.
What kind of communication approach do you use?
I take a very open approach in terms of allowing the work to dictate the medium - but in general I combine a range of approaches and discourse including but not limited to print media, publication design, live material, photography and video, installation as temporary works.
What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?
I engage with current issues in relation to land, land use, community gardening and biological matter.
What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?
That the work is constantly evolving - demanding a re-take on issues and a constant evaluation of practice in the public realm.
Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?
Its clear, insightful sometimes humerous and subversive.
Where and how do you intent do implement your work?
My work has taken the form of a number of exhibitions of late in Ireland with a new publication launched this Feb 2013. I am currently developing a new installation for Cambridge: Circulating Evidence # 1. [BEE WARS].
Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)
I am not entirely sure what is meant by this question? For me the work had an effect on the people who engaged with it.
Curators Comments
Alain Bieber
I love the different connection points at this projects - it´s great how you combine art exhibition with publications and debates, serious and important subjects like food sovereignty, seed culture, land use and community gardening with poetic and playful installations.
Alana Hunt
An initial look at this work brings home the gravity of the story you (and memefest) are concerned with. And it leaves me wanting more.
As a practitioner you have created something I want to give time to. In a world where there is an overabundance of information and projects calling out for attention, this is no small feat.
As I did spend time with this work, reading deeper, something else about the project as a whole and the world it looks at became apparent. In the many individual stories, anecdotes and statistics that you have brought together, something akin to the legend of David and Goliath starts to surface. And in that story, against all the odds, there is always hope.
The life’s work of Sanaa Abdul Wahab Al Sheick at the seed bank in Iraq, inspired me until these, her final remarks shook and provoked me, “I am a miserable woman because I loved my job and do without corruption in clear line.”
Her story, as becomes apparent in so many of the people you have conversed with, is the story of an individual working through (and in spite of) global conditions that are well beyond our immediate control.
The dramatic decline in Rye cultivation on the Aran Islands Fidelma speaks of highlights the intense change we have experienced in less than a century. And the handwritten letter about Purple Cabbage from Betty Geelan appears like an artefact from that century past. But it is not, and despite the decline in Rye cultivation Fidelma continues his work. And there, precisely, lies the beauty and the hope that this work gives.
Sanaa, Fidelma, Betty, Kerr and the many other figures who fill this publication are not fragments of a disappearing past, but working today passionate about diversity and localised knowledge in a world where these things are becoming increasingly difficult to hold to.
“97% of Iraqi farmers still use seeds saved from their own stock or bought from local markets.” What a beautiful and defiant piece of information. If only this was an international news headline, what the world could be…
Seed Matter does more than inform, it speaks of individuals standing, struggling, pursuing, defying, sometimes consciously and other times less consciously, in the face of what seems to be an unmanageable surge, a surge of Goliath proportions.
It may just be legend, but in the end David overcame Goliath, and there lies the hope that this work inspires us to hold to.
The final image of the publication is testimony to this. I presume it is you, Christine, with bucket, shuvel and pitchfork in hand. This image, of a lone individual, with little more than what they can hold in their hands and a seemingly hopeless yet symbolic and poetic determination to plant an apple tree in old orchid cum storage depot speaks pertinently of this struggle.
My only point of hesitation is towards the publication’s execution. There are a number of typos and grammatical errors that become difficult to look past and at times the design felt inconsistent.
It can be tricky to critically discuss the execution post-event of much conceptual and process driven work, because so much of it is ultimately intangible. But that said, I feel it is important to think about the materials we are working with. These are the forms that will allow the work to be experienced by others and in the end these material choices ultimately contribute to what we are saying.
But as I said earlier, this work succeeded in making me want to spend time with it. And after spending time with it, I was not at all disappointed. This work and the consequent publication are made up of your interactions with individuals and their work, but it’s beauty lies in the way you have brought individuals together, for you, for the people you spoke with but also for me, a third-party reader/participant. For that, I must say thank you.