The webinar takes place on 14th March at 13:15-15:00 CET on Zoom.

Please register for this zoom session, using this link: http://bit.ly/4034U2H

We are happy to invite you to Posthumanities Hub and The Eco and Bioart Lab webinar on “Beyond a World on Hold: The Ecological Imaginaries of Seed Banking”, with Dr Marleen Boschen, PhD in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.

ABSTRACT
Seed banking has become a hopeful technology of ex situ conservation in the face of biodiversity loss. Through storing seeds in liminal, often frozen, states, seed banks create valuable living archives. This talk brings together four seed banking practices ranging from iconic global seed vaults in the Norwegian Arctic and the UK to a forest gene bank in Poland and a food sovereignty seed bank in Palestine. It asks: what are these practices saving (for)? But also: what escapes them? I follow the patterns of collection, containment, and cultivation through three carrier seeds as narrative devices: a black bean, a banana wild relative, and an endangered white cucumber to observe shifting, sometimes conflicting, understandings of mastery, vulnerability, and sovereignty. I will suggest that these concepts are produced in practice, in relation to ecological imaginaries of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ that differ in their politics and ethics of saving.