The Roots are in the Seeds

Presented at Tignous Centre for the Arts - Montreuil - France

Part of the Exhibition

Parle-moi du jardin de ta Grandmére, curated by Rita Alaoui, 2024

The botanical world, a complex web of connections and collaborations, derives its health and well-being from its diversity. This diversity, the underlying secret of abundance and health, was further enriched in the XVI century by the Columbian exchange. This historic event expanded the horizons of food, introducing new flavours, colours,  and shapes to gardens and tables .

 Coral’s grandmother’s garden was an example of that variety; plants domesticated in Asia and the Middle East grew generously in her garden in Portoviejo, Ecuador, together with local native plants. Coconut alms  (Cocos)

domesticated by the Austronesian ancestors in Southeast Asia, growing beside Sapote (Quararibea cordata), native to Ecuador and other countries in South America, or the Guayaba tree ( Psidium guajava), a native plant domesticated in the region, growing above a Pomegranate (Punica granatum) bush, domesticated in the regions of Iran and Afghanistan. 

The poetry and power of these botanical encounters contrast; the current gardens of our cities, once vibrant with variety and diversity, have become limited and predictable, cut into uniform shapes and colours. As a result of these practices, our tables are abundant with mono-crops of fruit; for example, apples and bananas, to name a few, throughout the year in supermarkets worldwide.

 This art installation, The Roots are in the Seeds, confronts the alarming trend of homogenisation in the agricultural landscape and invites people to think about our organic seeds as a legacy for the future of our foodways. 

The installation presents a fruit garden as a platform to discuss human memories, plant exchanges, life diversity, food, and our relationships to human migration.