Seeds of Change

Seeds of Change, an ongoing investigation of ballast flora, was initiated in 1999. Ballast was any economical and heavy material used to stabilize merchant sailing vessels and dumped along with accidental seeds upon arrival at the port for more freight to be carried on. I trace these unnoticed seeds that have arrived in European ports such as Marseille, Reposaari, Exeter/Topsham, Liverpool, Dunkirk, Bristol, New York and in 2019 in Antwerp.

I research ports, ships and botanical records, locate ballast sites, take earth samples and pot them. Seeds germinate and grow, potentially bearing witness to a far more complex narrative of world history which includes slavery, colonization, global migration, and commodification than is usually presented by orthodox accounts.

Maria Thereza Alves

For example, in Liverpool, such a massive quantity of ballast acquired through the trade of enslaved peoples arrived that it used as construction material for ‘ballast-made roads’ where non-autochthonous flora was found growing.

Each iteration of the project was developed to address local contexts and communities specifically. A Floating Ballast Seed Garden along with a five-year public program was established in Bristol. Ballast Flora Gardens were created for Weeksville Heritage Center, the High Line and Pioneer Works in New York.

Historically, categories of knowledge prevent knowledge from being developed; art offers a multidisciplinary approach, and thus this work has impacted thinkers such as Jill Casid, Seth Denizen, Jean Fischer, Kevin Slavin, Nicholas Wray, and Yrjo Haila. If official histories fail to account for, and even work against local knowledge and experience, art, by contrast, has the potential to reclaim such narratives as the contemporary social reality.