• 2009 / bronze, chain / approx 60 x 60cm, opens to 120cm wide

This work is inspired by the ‘Doomsday Seedback’ a modern day arc for our agricultural heritage where millions of seeds have been stored in an underground indestructible bunker in sub zero temperatures. It is an attempt to conserve the world’s agricultural inheritance against disaster. In effect the seedbank is a keepsake of humanity, it is a place to store our precious botanical diversity in the form of seeds, away from the harm of extinction.

The locket is a keepsake, it is a place to store something precious and an object to be treasured. The symbology of the locket in this work is connected to sentiment and was created during a deeply emotional personal time.

The image on the front of the locket is a sunflower, a major crop plant used in the production of human food. Inside the locket is patterning depicting the seeds of the sunflower as seen when compacted in a seedhead in a spiralling formation. The seeds are protected and cherished inside the locket with the use of bronze representing the illusion of indestructibility. The seedbank has been built in the hope of withstanding earthquake or nuclear explosion but nothing is permanent or guaranteed.

I find a certain irony in the doomsday seedbank, although well meaning it seems to have become a modern day ark, except instead of a flood, it is genetic diversity, genetic modification, habitat destruction and nuclear disaster that are the threats. All of these things are human interventions, it seems to be a refuge for ourselves, from ourselves.

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