THE PURBECK SEEDBANK
This project extends work undertaken in the first semester, where the relationship between two major forms of farming: agricultural and mineral was explored. A solution was proposed to use the phytoremediating plant species of the sunflower, to extract ground soil contaminants and restore landscapes left poisoned by the process of hydraulic fracturing.
The next phase of the project looks further along the network of this remediation strategy; to the collection, storage and distribution of bioremediating plant seeds. A seed bank is proposed in the Isle of Purbeck, as part of the existing global network of seed vaults to collect such seeds, preserving the diversity of remediating plant species and providing an armoury for future landscape remediation around the world. The seed bank invites the public to observe the processes of seed preservation, highlighting the species, sources, quantities and economics of the operation, and the role the strategy plays in our current age of wide scale destructive mineral extraction. Through its unique location and procedures, the Purbeck seed bank aims to communi- cate this present day operation within the wider geological processes of the earth, deep time and the conse- quences of the anthropocene.
