Seedbanking in Four Acts: Nature Conservation as a Narrative Necessity

Seedbanking in Four Acts unearths the narrative layer underlying the global biodiversity conservation effort by questioning the kind of nature being preserved. The theatrical script reinterprets the standardised procedure through which the international network selects, collects and freezes seeds of specific species as a backup for their potential extinction. The conservation procedure becomes a language in a play, where characters are oversized wax reproductions of a species repopulated by the Pisa seedbank; the Hypericum elodes. These plant reproductions convey an alternative narrative where wax shifts from a historical scientific means for display into expressive matter, telling how the seemingly strictly technological procedure becomes a plant’s successful survival strategy.