Archiving Eden

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ISBN: 9789053308844
Uitgever: Schilt Publishing B.V.
Verschijningsvorm: Hardcover
Auteur: Dornith Doherty Elizabeth Avedon
Druk: 1
Pagina's: 182
Taal: Engels
Verschijningsjaar: 2017
NUR: Fotografie, film, video als kunstvormen

Spurred by the impending completion of the Svarlbard Global Seed Vault, Archiving Eden explores the role of seed banks and their preservation efforts in the face of climate change, the extinction of natural species, and decreased agricultural diversity. Serving as a global botanical backup system, these privately and publicly funded institutions assure the opportunity for reintroduction of species should a catastrophic event or civil strife affect a key ecosystem somewhere in the world.

Since 2008 Dornith Doherty has worked in collaboration with renowned biologists at the most comprehensive international seed banks in the world: the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service's National Centre for Genetic Resources Preservation in Colorado, U.S., the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the U.K.; and PlantBank, Threatened Flora Centre, and Kings Park Botanic Gardens in Australia.

Utilising the archives' on-site x-ray equipment that is routinely used for viability assessments of

accessioned seeds, Doherty 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. Doherty is struck by the power of

these tiny plantlets and seeds (many are the size of a grain of sand) to generate life and to endure

the time span central to the process of seed banking, which seeks to make these sparks last for two hundred years or more.

Use of the colour delft/indigo blue evokes references not only to the process of cryogenic

preservation, central to the methodology of saving seeds, but also to the intersection of east and

west, trade, cultural exchange, and migration. This tension between stillness and change reflects

her focus on the elusive goal of stopping time in relation to living materials, which at some

moment, we may all like to do.

Dornith Doherty was born in Houston, Texas and received a B.A. cum laude from Rice University

and a MFA in Photography from Yale University. She is Distinguished Research Professor at the

University of North Texas, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. In 2012 she was awarded

a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Doherty's work has been featured in exhibitions widely in

the U.S. and abroad at institutions including: FotoFest, U.S.; The Bluecoat, U.K.; The Centro de

Fotografía, Spain; Galerie Lužánky, Czech Republic; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, U.S.; the

Museum Belvédère, The Netherlands; The Museum of Photography, Rafaela, Argentina. Her work

is held in numerous permanent collections across the world.