The Cryptic Lexicon of Seeds

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

I would like to take some time away from creating art to focus on thinking about the nonlinearity and anachrony of vegetal life, more specifically, seeds. I have become fascinated by their diverse modes of dispersal, from wind, water, and biotic actions to explosive mechanisms, and the relationship between these modes of travel and their physical forms. As a migrant myself, having led a peripatetic life, this resonates deeply. Some of us faced greater challenges in moving, some are labeled as “invasive” threats, some eventually intertwined into a vast wood wide web that links roots with their ancestors, and some never looked back. In Michael Marder's Time Is a Plant, seeds are described not simply as beginnings or latent potential, but as states of temporal suspension. Some of them can remain dormant for centuries before germinating. Stagnation and that ambiguous opacity, however, is not always a given in immigrant communities. We are required to register as one profession or another, with no liminal ground or twilight state for possibilities. We must prove our worth to the authorities from beginning to end, leaving no room for rest or retrospection. We always exist in a state of becoming. Our languages behave like seeds: they spread, mutate, merge, and take root in different ways. In my past work, I have conducted extensive research and experiments on linguistic systems. This time, I wish to focus on the language about and of seeds, travel, and the vegetal pace of life. I will collect words from the languages spoken by the diverse cohort at Saari Residence, recording them as morphemes and subtle traces of sound, alongside seeds and botanical information about the local vegetation. The seeds themselves will not be permitted to travel with me. I will give them to each person who contributed words, asking them to return the seeds to the land. The words, however, will accompany me to the end of this journey, where they will be fermented into a new piece.