Seeds are seen as carriers of stories and histories: as small but complete entities that slowly unfold. Seeds can travel great distances, changing local ecosystems in the form of ballast flora, travelling in the stomachs of cargo ships, sprouting in their new homes. Seeds can remain dormant for centuries and then, conditions permitting, suddenly germinate and grow. Some seeds need strength to germinate; conditions that are often perceived as crises, such as fires or floods.
Szemző focuses on the origin stories of indeterminate cultures and natural environments that preceded these unknown cultures. The exhibition is a compendium of these stories – visitors are invited to immerse themselves in the thick of these narratives to discover our interconnectedness with plant material. Zsófia Szemző’s work focuses on the slow and meticulous process of exploration: imagined pasts and imagined futures from the perspective of the present and imagined pasts from the perspective of imagined futures.
These conceptual excavations take different forms and media: drawings, collages, videos, ceramic objects and installations fill the gallery space. The starting point for Szemző’s recent works is a family story: the family recently unearthed official and private correspondence from his grandfather, including his experiments with soy late in life. Her grandfather, born in 1894, was an agricultural researcher and farmer, working with sugar beet, fodder crops and soya beans, then working in the Ministry of Agriculture during the post-World War II crisis of 1947-1948, later becoming a translator of agricultural texts and then working at the Feedbase Research Institute.
It is in part this family thread that forms the basis of the works on display. The drawings reveal how we learn about plant development through the process of germination, seed preservation, the knowledge that is embedded in seeds; through famine and drought data, through plants grown from the oldest seeds, through the various traditions associated with traditional sowing and harvesting.
The other dominant narrative unfolds through an exploration of possible climate and agricultural futures and the potential of seeds. Leguminosae futurum and The Order of Seeds show the potential of seeds for self-sustainability and resilience, and how beans could become the most important source of protein in the future.