Fume, Root, Seed
In ‘Fume, Root, Seed’, Isadora Romero examines the alarming global decline of seed varieties due to the erasure of ancestral memory and indigenous knowledge – the result of colonization, forced displacement and racism. Between 2017 and 2022, Romero travelled across Latin America to document this crisis, in which 75% of the world’s seed varieties have been lost in the past 20 years.
This exhibition shows the four different chapters of ‘Fume, Root, Seed’. Her own family’s history in Colombia (’Blood is a Seed’) and their contribution to the preservation of the potato seed forms the catalyst and culmination of the project’s ethos. In Paraguay (’Ra’yi’), she observes the way women collectivize to counter agribusiness that limits production for local consumption, and the inequitable land distribution this industry benefits from. In Ecuador (’Muyu Lab’), Romero seeks to understand the dual approaches to conservation: the indigenous and the conventionally scientific. In doing so, she acknowledges the investment of both communities in similar goals, but also the lack of dialogue between the two.Finally, in Mexico (’Then we tamed the fire’), she looks at the cultural significance of food and how domesticated plants can be preserved through their relationship to the human species.
For Romero, reclaiming the biodiversity of seeds is a metaphor for restoring ancestral memory. She shows how a deep-rooted relationship with the land can ensure diversity and food sovereignty, and with it social justice.
With thanks to Magnum Foundation, Prins Claus Fonds, World Press Photo, Fotodocument.
